


Expendable Heroes

by IAmNotCreativeEnough



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-27 12:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmNotCreativeEnough/pseuds/IAmNotCreativeEnough
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke was what many would call a prodigy and far above his peers in all categories. To him, the idea of a boy two years his junior being in his class was ridiculous. That boy being dead-last and barely passing in all subjects did help him think little of him. Then came Taijutsu practice and Sasuke found himself beaten before he could even tell what was going on. That, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start Of A Fated Rivalry

Sasuke was a budding Taijutsu genius.

His body adapted faster and grew stronger. He was fast both to learn and to move. Even without his Sharingan, he was capable of remembering a variety of stances and movements that he incorporated into the structured Uchiha Interceptor style to counter the need for the Sharingan. Something he had learned from his brother, nine times out of ten, if you can trick a Sharingan you can defeat its owner.

The interceptor style, without knowing exactly where an attack came from was useless, so Sasuke learned from his brother a variety of moves he himself picked up from his ANBU team and from his other comrades.

His talent in Taijutsu quickly impressed his elder brother, even if his ninjutsu left something to be desired from his father. He had taken far, far too long to master the Goukakyuu, which had been something that drove a divide between him and his family until his brother figured out that he simply didn't have talent for the Uchiha's prized fire jutsu gallery. Just about anything else came easy to Sasuke, particularly Raiton, even if he wasn't up to Itachi's level, or even close.

Genjutsu he suffered from both a lack of interest and of talent, but it was okay, as long as he could detect and break Genjutsu, he could wait until his Sharingan took care of actively casting the Genjutsu in the first place. It was leaning on a crutch, but even Itachi admitted that having a weapon and not using it is quite dumb.

Because Sasuke was overall the best student in the class with by far the best grades in Taijutsu of the entire class, there was something that he hadn't expected.

He had been defeated in a spar. Very easily, even.

And there wasn't anything to say about it. He never went easy on anyone, because to him it was an insult to downplay one's abilities, but even so, when he'd been pitted against the dead last, who had barely passing grades in all categories and was even two years younger (how the hell the boy managed to not be booted back to his proper grade was something that Sasuke would never know, must be a paperwork mishap)…

The boy was so tiny, so thin and so pathetic that Sasuke couldn't help but underestimate him. So when he went for a quick win, he found himself on the floor, with a foot on his chest that drove the air away from his lungs. The blond boy didn't say a word, he just turned around and walked away after countering Sasuke's simple straight to the face and defeating him with only one move.

An eight year old boy who should have been in his first year of the academy, who was nearly failing every class, had just completely curbstomped the Rookie Of The Year without even trying.

Sasuke took a deep breath and tried to ignore his swimming vision. He had seen it all. When Sasuke's fist neared the boy's face, he'd grabbed it and used the Uchiha's own momentum to throw him to the ground, before stomping on his chest only once.

A simple, delightfully basic counterattack, executed to perfection.

He shook and cleared his head, finding the tanned, frowning face of Umino Iruka, contorted with concern, looking him over. "I'm fine." Sasuke announced, taking in much needed breath. His chest hurt, it'd probably bruise.

Sasuke could hear the screeching of his fangirls, the ones he'd collected over the years of being the best at everything, some of them screaming at the blond who'd wordlessly stuck his head in a book without seeming to hear them and the rest questioning him on his health and safety.

The curse of all Uchiha, the Fangirls, were going to drive him absolutely nuts, so he tuned them out in favor of focusing his attention on the boy who was even now ignoring everything around him.

Then he decided. The dead last had completely surpassed him in what was his best subject. Therefore, in order to prove he was worthy of being called a Taijutsu Genius, he'd defeat him. And the best way to defeat an opponent is to learn about them, how their techniques work, and how to counter them.

It was at that point that Uchiha Sasuke, rookie of the year, had chosen the dead last as his rival.

* * *

Half lidded, sapphire blue eyes ran from word to word, not missing a single one. There was absolutely no doubt in Umino Iruka's mind that the boy was paying just about no attention to his lecture, and he did not know what to do about said fact.

The Sandaime Hokage had made it very clear than any and all attempts at sabotaging his education would be met with force. The Shinobi History teacher had learned this firsthand when he'd tried to kick Naruto out of his classes. The Hokage kept a very close eye on the village's jinchuuriki and he did NOT tolerate bias against him. Not to mention, the god of Shinobi delivered the punishments himself.

People did not have the balls to even correct the boy when he was doing something wrong, such as paying more attention to the orange-covered, unlabeled books he seemed to carry around everywhere than to the teacher that was attempting to educate him into becoming a halfway decent Shinobi.

It took a full minute of internal debate while his body continued to go through the lesson on auto pilot before he finally decided that, jinchuuriki or not, Hokage's favorite or not, the boy was nonetheless one of his students and Iruka prided himself in being a fair and unbiased teacher. "Uzumaki-san, if you do not pay attention to the lecture, I will have to ask you to remain after class to make up for the time you miss." Iruka called, more than a bit of irritation to his voice.

The boy said nothing, as usual, merely slammed his book shut and settled it, carefully, against his desk, turning his gaze to the chalkboard and then, to Iruka. The tanned teacher allowed himself a smirk at the sight.

Uzumaki was a problem boy, rarely, if ever, doing anything the teachers commanded him to do, or so the gossip went, so seeing him obey a command like this was a point of pride to Iruka. At the very least, Uzumaki respected him enough to.

When he turned back to the chalkboard, however, his hand snapped behind the back of his head and blocked a small piece of chalk, most likely pilfered at some point from one of the teachers. He was not a Shinobi for nothing, so Iruka quickly turned around. His gaze locked onto where Uzumaki was, still sitting with a bored look on his face.

"It was Uzumaki, sensei! I saw him!" A brown haired boy spoke, pointing at the blond and grinning widely. There were nods from several of his classmates, causing Iruka to frown and stare at Uzumaki, who said nothing to defend himself.

He never did say anything to defend himself, and seemed to accept his status as a troublemaker… Iruka didn't know why. Maybe he just liked the attention? It was a possibility. The boy was usually so silent, calm and quiet that it was easy to miss him. Even in the glaringly orange jumpsuit, the boy somehow managed to be a stealth expert on par with trained ANBU when he wanted to be.

After all, the boy had once slipped in two hours late to a lesson and nobody had noticed he was there until the Taijutsu lessons.

"It wasn't him." A voice far too solemn to be coming from a child cut over the people agreeing with the brown haired boy who'd accused Naruto in the first place. The voice of the Uchiha, all of them, often carried that calm and authoritative quality to it that made others listen to them.

Iruka supposed that that was why they were one of the most important clans of Konohagakure, besides them being the one remaining founding clan. Iruka smiled. "Uchiha-san?" He prodded, turning to the black haired second in line to the Uchiha Clan.

The boy clasped his hands in front of his face. "It was Mutou."

Of course Iruka had known it had been the brown haired boy himself the whole time. To think that the boy that still had chalk in his hands thought he could hide his actions from a chunin was outright ludicrous. The tanned teacher merely smiled because he saw someone sticking up for the eight year old boy who seemed to be the target of bullies everywhere he went.

"Mutou-san, you will remain after class and will have to write an essay about why it is a terrible idea to lie to a chunin unless you're absolutely certain you can get away with it." Iruka said, looking his most disappointed to the entire class.

* * *

The Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, looked on none too impressed at the staff of the academy. Last year, their work hadn't been particularly impressive, considering that the genin that had passed their jounin sensei's test, all twelve of them, were rather pathetic and the rookie and Kunoichi of the year had both been forced to fail thanks to the old tradition of putting them in a team together with the dead last, who was so far away from a competent ninja that it wasn't even funny.

This was a problem that cropped up from following tradition. When Sarutobi first took Jiraiya along with Tsunade and Orochimaru, he'd done so because Jiraiya had had as much, if not even more, raw talent than the other two put together and he'd been proven right when Jiraiya had become the glue of the team.

The decline of the quality of the genin had caused him to actually pay close attention to the teachers and how they performed their duties which had resulted in firing four teachers who'd probably get discharged as Shinobi altogether. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put the people who are being denied promotion to work as teachers? Touji Mizuki had been found out as a traitor not too long ago, and had had a full two years to sabotage his classes, and the other three were just outright incompetent.

Regardless, he let himself smile when he saw Iruka's report on his favorite student's near spotless disciplinary record this year. Iruka had flat out pointed out how the boy almost always ended up as a scapegoat for his classmates' idiocy, and given his uncaring attitude, he never did anything to defend himself, either.

Iruka had actually told the Uzumaki to pay attention and, lo and behold, Uzumaki did, eyes never straying away from wherever the teacher intended them to be, even if they appeared as unconcerned and uncaring as ever, Iruka had noticed a marked improvement in Uzumaki's overall grades when he paid attention to class. As well as a sky-rocket of his Taijutsu grades after they started to grade based on actual fighting proficiency instead of theoretical knowledge and the ability to execute the kata the teacher instructed.

Granted, it required telling him to stop reading the goddamn book once every hour or so, but hey, it was progress.

* * *

Sasuke was not often seen after class hanging around the town. As the Uchiha Heir, he was a juicy target for just about anyone, so usually you'd see him training in his clan's compound. Today, however, he had found himself in dire need of wandering around town randomly, the exact reason being that he was unnaturally bored.

Itachi was out god knows where doing god knows what, his father was busy running the MP and his mother had her own genin team to take care of.

Plus, his mission to learn about how Uzumaki had gotten so outstandingly strong.

He had never seen Uzumaki exert himself. When they were made to run, Uzumaki didn't even have to control his breath, he just ran at a steady pace from beginning to end, often without even lifting his head from his book. When they were made to spar, whoever ended up sparring with Uzumaki would often have their world turned upside down without ever so much as touching him.

Only on this year would they actually start getting taught the control and manipulation of chakra, apparently the first few years were weeding out those who could definitely not be ninja while the last two were supposed to actually train one into harnessing the power of their chakra. Made sense to not train the dropouts in the use of a shinobi's most versatile tool.

So whatever it was, it wasn't chakra. It wasn't natural physical ability, as Uzumaki was rightfully the smallest member of the class, being two years younger than everyone else and even then rather small for a child of nine.

Sasuke did not expect to get an answer to his many questions when he wandered through the training grounds (often people went to watch some of the more showy Shinobi training, provided some entertainment, while Sasuke often went to steal techniques he might use in his own training if any proved interesting enough), but he did. In a lone training ground, designed for physical practice, he noticed a familiar blob of orange and yellow.

After the summer, Uzumaki's hair had gotten slightly longer, and he was certain that if it wasn't as spiky as it was the bangs sticking from above his headband would fall onto his eyes. The blond had probably added it to simulate a forehead protector or, more likely, to block the hair from bothering him.

Sasuke's eyes were fixated on Uzumaki's tiny fists hitting the wood of a training post. Mostly because every time they did, the red stain underneath the post seemed to get a tiny bit bigger, while there was an indentation shaped like a pair of tiny fists that was also colored red in the post itself.

To say that the Uchiha was transfixed by the display would have been an understatement, and then he knew. He knew why Uzumaki was as good at actual Taijutsu as he was. Whereas Sasuke banked on his natural talent and ability to remain far ahead of the curb, Uzumaki trained and built upon his own innate talent.

Sasuke sat on the wall that divided the rather small and untidy training site from the park it was close to and simply watched Uzumaki unload punch after punch after punch, often delivering upwards of a hundred strikes in one form only to switch to his legs and then back. Had he not stared intently at his legs, he might not have noticed the red liquid running down the boy's sandals.

He winced upon seeing the mutilated state of the boy's feet, once tanned skin in a combination of bruise-purples and blood red.

It wasn't until after an hour of continued training, that Sasuke observed, that Uzumaki actually began to slow down, the intervals of movements becoming shorter and more varied as he had to switch between his limbs faster and faster, lest one become exhausted.

Impressed as he was, Sasuke didn't miss the fact that the heat had forced Uzumaki to discard his orange jacket, revealing a perhaps once plain white shirt that now resembled a collection of holes more closely than a piece of clothes. Since the shirt was short sleeved, it let Sasuke appreciate just how truly thin Uzumaki's arms were. He was certain that he could grab both of his arms with one hand without problem.

They were also covered in white bandages stained with both blood and sweat. The holes in the shirt's torso also let Sasuke observe the fact that Uzumaki's entire body, not just his arms, was covered in bandages.

In the end, however, he couldn't just stay and watch there forever… so he decided he might as well begin his own training to catch up. The best way to catch up to someone who trains harder than you is to train as hard as, or harder, than that person, and the training grounds were easily big enough for both of them.

Uzumaki didn't even spare him a glance as Sasuke began to get rid of his own stress by utilizing the facilities of the training ground to exercise his muscles. Uzumaki was lost into his own training, it seemed, and from the complicated combo that he seemed to be executing on the training dummy (that involved several movements that would have made most non-ninja males wince), Sasuke understood why.

Sasuke, however, wasn't lost to his training and was, as a matter of fact, was acutely aware of everything that happened around him. He blamed it on his brother's awareness training (involving throwing senbon at him whenever Sasuke lost track of his surroundings), but it allowed him to hear something that most people would've missed in the chaotic mess of sounds that accompanied ninja training.

There was a crack. A short, almost silent gasp, and then a thud.

Sasuke turned around to see Uzumaki on the floor, probably after a complicated maneuver that had gone wrong the moment the training dummy had been snapped in half and, given the torn look of the orange pant leg that still clung to Uzumaki's blood and sweat soaked skin, had broken into splinters and dug into the small boy's skin.

Sasuke had to commend Uzumaki's stoic demeanor at not cracking, even under the no doubt huge pain he must have felt at the time. In fact, Uzumaki didn't even seem to hesitate as he began to rip the larger bits of wood from his leg without a care in the world and when his hand came down upon his leg, Sasuke noticed that the boy's hand was also covered in splinters.

He sighed and remembered a time when his own elder brother had explained to him that pulling anything imbedded into your body carelessly can do more damage than what it did going in. Fugaku had corroborated this, explaining to Sasuke that all police officers knew the basics of field first aid and Sasuke himself would be no exception.

"You'll only hurt yourself if you pull them out like that." Sasuke said, though Uzumaki didn't seem to care particularly and only gave him a stare that carried only the slightest hint of confusion. Sasuke had a hard time reading it, but still, he sighed and walked up to the still sitting blond, ignoring his intent gaze and kneeling in front of the wounded leg, inspecting the splinters lodged in it. "You should probably go to the hospital… your leg looks pretty badly beaten…" He said, after taking a moment to look at the horribly bruised lump of flesh that might have once been someone's shin.

Uzumaki merely shook his head and went back to pulling the splinters out without consideration for his own well being.

Sasuke grabbed his hand at the wrist. "You're doing this wrong. You will only hurt yourself. Let me do it." He didn't know what had possessed him to even close the distance between them. He supposed he was just still in awe and feeling respect towards the one who trained his body even after the point where even the most determined of men would have stopped.

The blond didn't do or say anything other than lower his hand. Sasuke took it as his cue and went back to work on Uzumaki's leg with a concentrated frown.

* * *

Maybe it had been the afternoon he spent tending to his wounds. Maybe it was the fact that he'd gotten stabbed by his own fair share of splinters that day. Maybe it was the simple fact that Uzumaki was the only sparring partner who Sasuke could not easily defeat.

Whatever it was, Sasuke had found out that Uzumaki did not ignore him as he ignored everyone else in the class. This meant that the blond had as much respect for him as he had for the teachers and , contrary to popular opinion, Uzumaki seemed to have a high opinion of the academy's staff, particularly one Umino Iruka.

The mere fact that he listened to what they said and looked at them at all spoke volumes, given that Uzumaki still had the nasty habit of focusing on whatever book it was that he'd gotten in his hands when anyone else spoke. Whenever one of their classmates would speak to Uzumaki, the blond would just continue reading.

The fact that he put down the book and actually turned to regard Sasuke whenever Sasuke actually spoke to him made the rumors about whatever their relationship might be, mostly propagated by the more… fanatic members of Sasuke's own fanclub, fly all over the academy, but it was none of Sasuke's concerns.

After all, unlike just about everyone else, Uzumaki actually knew how to listen and that was what Sasuke wanted from him.

* * *

Uzumaki, despite his brutal training style, actually seemed to know what he was doing when he trained himself. Sasuke had learned quite a lot from the blond's own movements and incorporated several of them into his own move-set. Sasuke had a knack for copying another's abilities, even without his Sharingan, which had made him even further excited of when he'd finally get his Sharingan, since he could not only copy the abilities he saw, but also improve upon them.

Yet Uzumaki had still never initiated the interaction between them. Sasuke understood that the boy was, seemingly, extremely introverted, but this was ridiculous! Uzumaki never seemed to notice, nor care, of anything entering the training site while he was using it, and it pissed Sasuke off to no end to be ignored like that.

But then, he reminded himself, that was just the way that Uzumaki was. Hyperfocus is not always a bad thing, as they say, annoying as it was. Whenever he actually spoke to Uzumaki, he could tell that despite the boy did not stop his training for even a second, his ears were always open to whatever Sasuke had to say, and considering Uzumaki ignored anything but the important information even from the teachers, this was an ego boost like no other.

"Do you want to spar?" Sasuke asked, tentatively. He did not know if Uzumaki found sparring with him pointless, given that every spar they'd had in class had always gone the same way, often a tremendously one-sided victory in Uzumaki's favor.

The sheer strength and pain resistance built from hours upon hours of training had created a vast gulf between Uzumaki and a normal academy student, but Sasuke was no normal student. Sasuke adapted faster and better than any of his classmates could ever hope to. Whereas Uzumaki dispatched just about anyone in two to three moves at the most, Sasuke had gotten used to it.

He had gotten used to the fact that Uzumaki never attacked first. It wasn't because Uzumaki wanted to hold back and prepare a strategy to deal with his opponents. He didn't need to. Uzumaki never attacked before he was attacked first and while Sasuke wanted to know where this fixation came from, he knew better than to outright ask the one who would never answer.

First he'd have to earn the blond's trust.

Seeing the blond seemingly think it over for a few seconds, enough to let him have an internal monologue, the Uchiha thought out his battle plan. Uzumaki may not need one, but he certainly did. Seeing the blond's nod, Sasuke jumped backward, putting some distance and landing in the soft grass not too far away from the other batch of training dummies.

Uzumaki's first attack was always a counterattack, as a result of that, but there were things he could not counter. Sasuke's strategy relied on opening the fight with a ranged attack, so he grabbed one of his blunted kunai (he'd taken to carrying them everywhere, apparently it helped get used to the weight and to the position they'd be in) from the pouch in his right leg and with technique worthy of a genin let it fly towards his target, who caught it with two of his fingers just an inch away from his forehead.

Before the blond could discard it, Sasuke had rushed forward and bent low, dodging under the rather predictable backhanded throw that Uzumaki used to return the kunai, and then spinning around on his own axis to try to sweep the blond's legs from under him.

The blond hopped into the air and Sasuke nearly yelped when he saw the sandal mark on the floor. Hadn't he decided to get his leg out of the way quicker, his ankle would probably have been reduced to paste by the comeback stomp. Completing his spin, Sasuke used his momentum to deliver a staggering blow, the first blow he'd ever landed, to Uzumaki's side.

There was no ooph. There was no sign of pain. There was nothing. Uzumaki looked as if nothing had happened, even if his next attack had been interrupted and his muscles had tensed to prevent the damage to his insides. The reaction never reached the blond's face.

Remaining unfazed at Sasuke's shocked face, Uzumaki countered the attack with a simple straight to the face that Sasuke blocked… Only to find out that was the entire purpose of the move. With one arm overextended and the other blocking the face, Uzumaki's leg was free to snap forward and send Sasuke flying away.

Landing on a heap, the Uchiha groaned his pain out loud. "Okay… note to self… Less gawky more fighty…" He mumbled to himself as he stood up, nursing his much abused abdominal muscles (that still hadn't formed, dammit!) and offering Uzumaki an apologetic frown. "I'm still not up to snuff, but soon I'll be able to beat you."

Uzumaki said nothing, merely nodded and turned back to his training.

Acknowledgement. It had come several months into their relationship, but Uzumaki had finally acknowledged him as a rival and, at the time, Sasuke thought that it was the one thing he'd needed to surpass both his limitations and his brother.

* * *

Uzumaki was not, as Sasuke thought, a genius who held his knowledge back to not stand out. Uzumaki was an intelligent individual, but his lack of interest for pretty much anything other than the many ways in which one can kill people probably screwed his grades more than his unwillingness to actually display his knowledge.

Sasuke had learned that Uzumaki simply did not care and did not pay attention to anything but the lectures specific about Shinobi work, which were often given by Umino Iruka, who he had learned was the blond's only friend amongst the teachers, considering he was the one teacher who treated the small boy fairly.

Having become his unofficial protector, Sasuke had had to deal with a variety of bullies over the years, particularly one Inuzuka Kiba (who somehow hopped between friend and bully every other day, talk about bipolar), but mostly civilians who did not understand how exactly the dead last managed to get into the academy two years earlier and pass while they failed.

The academy put very little weight into academic pursuits and much more weight on the students' physical abilities in the early years, changing focus towards Ninjutsu in the last year. It made a certain sense, again, to hold back the knowledge of the more complicated forms of chakra manipulation to the ones who would actually be capable of using them.

Regardless, Uzumaki never cared, even if he was bullied. He did not acknowledge insults or compliments. He just stuck his face inside of his book and read, ignoring any but the teachers and the class' resident Uchiha.

One day, Sasuke, with his mother's prodding, realized that his relationship with Uzumaki was weird and couldn't really be called friendship, so he wanted to fix that. Uchiha Mikoto, Sasuke's mother, had suggested he invite the boy for dinner.

So Sasuke stuck around the academy, since that particular day, like many of the week, Uzumaki had been placed on detention for no real reason other than his presence annoying the teachers. Sasuke had to admit, Uzumaki was tremendously irritating at times, but this was ridiculous.

Deciding that he didn't want to wait, he thought about sneaking Uzumaki out of the classroom. All he'd have to do is grab him and just drag him away. Uzumaki wouldn't protest or say anything, and it was for his own good, anyway.

He did not expect, however, to hear anything coming from the classroom. "Hm… How are you, Naruto-kun?" Asked a rather old, weary and tired voice. Anyone could have recognized it. That voice made the most valiant of man think twice. That voice struck fear into the hearts of men. That was the voice of the God Of Shinobi, the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha, Sarutobi Hiruzen.

There was no response. Sasuke hadn't expected one.

"That's nice." The Hokage said, his tone more than a bit amused. Sasuke peeked through the door that separated the classroom from the hall, opening it around the width of his pinky, and what he saw shocked him. The Sandaime Hokage had one hand on top of his blond friend's head and was ruffling his hair affectionately, like a grandfather would to his grandson. "I've heard you made a friend." The old man said.

Uzumaki nodded, his book closed and laid to rest on the desk.

It kind of warmed Sasuke's heart to know that Uzumaki hadn't hesitated, even a second, to name him as one of his friends. "Hm… Try not to cause too much trouble for him, okay?" The grandfatherly smile on the Third's face left Sasuke dumbfounded.

Apparently, Uzumaki was actually far more important in the grand scheme of things than he'd thought. His curiosity about the blond enigma shot up at that point, because most adults seemed to find him to be an irritating little prick, which was weird. Wouldn't they be kissing the ass of the Hokage's favorite?

As interesting as it was, Sasuke knew that the moment the old man's focus left Uzumaki, he'd probably detect Sasuke in an instant, so he decided to go for the best bluff he could think of and simply barged in. "Uzumaki, are you still he- Oh. I apologize for interrupting." Sasuke said, upon intruding into the moment.

Uzumaki, like always, remained completely unfazed, while the old man let out a loud chuckle. "Boy, I've known you were there since the moment you stepped into the hall. Do take good care of Naruto-kun, he's… not very good at it." Sarutobi said, standing and walking up to Sasuke, ruffling his hair for good measure. "Now then, I have work to get back to and you have something to tell Naruto-kun, I presume."

Sasuke blinked, seeing the wink the old man threw at him. Was that, maybe, the Hokage approving of his friendship with the blond boy? It seemed the old man was fairly protective of the blond, if he had actually met in person with him. The Hokage rarely, if ever, left the office.

Uzumaki just kept getting more interesting with each turn…

* * *

Uzumaki might be by far the greatest when it came to practical fighting, but Sasuke was leaps and bounds ahead of him in practically everything else. In fact, Uzumaki somehow managed to be the dead last. It was actually odd, considering that despite his rather horrendous Chakra Control, Uzumaki could manage the Kawarimi perfectly and his henge…

His henge had transcended the boundaries of the simple illusory technique and somehow become a complete transformation. Apparently, nobody had told Uzumaki that the henge is not supposed to be physical and, given that what he reads is better left unsaid, he'd gone and made up his own version after the standard henge failed him utterly.

The bunshin was a lost cause, however. Uzumaki could not manipulate so little chakra at once. It was simply impossible for him. The Bunshin is the least chakra intensive technique out there, consuming even less than taking a few vertical steps would. Haruno Sakura, the rather pitiful Kunoichi Of The Year, could manage to create two dozen bunshin with ease.

Given that Sasuke had just obtained his headband for doing that exact same jutsu, it seemed that the test was tailored to fail Uzumaki, since failure in two of the three tests meant automatic failure. Uzumaki would no doubt get top marks in Taijutsu and fail utterly at the written portion of the exam. Had the jutsu to test been anything other than the bunshin or the Kawarimi, he'd have passed Ninjutsu with flying colors…

… But with the bunshin?

He was bound for failure, no doubt.

Sasuke hadn't known he'd been holding his breath until Uzumaki came walking out with a forehead protector replacing his usual headband. He smiled at the tiny newly minted genin, even if he'd passed just barely, he had. After all, Sasuke's rival could not be a failure, right?

* * *

"Team 7 will be… Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke…"

Sasuke winced, hearing the high pitched scream coming from his elated self proclaimed number 1 fangirl, and locked his eyes on the teacher.

"TAKE THAT, INO-PIG! True love conquers all!"

Shallow, fan girlish love is not true love, Sasuke wanted to say. But he kept quiet because he knew she'd ignore it like she had ignored just about every other stinking time he'd told his fangirls that he was much more interested in an actual Kunoichi than in the useless Kunoichi.

"… And Uzumaki Naruto, under Hatake Kakashi."

The blond merely turned to Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged and the blond turned back to the chalkboard. He did, however, pull out a book with a blond man on old timey chunin armor and a rather confident smirk on his face from one of his pockets. He did not remove his eyes from the book, however, and simply tossed the smaller book towards Sasuke. Sasuke raised one eyebrow and caught it.

Three hours later, while Sakura was trying to get either of her teammates to talk to her instead of focusing on their respective books, Hatake Kakashi walked through the door. "Yo." He said, waving to them. He got completely ignored by the blond and while the pink haired girl yelled at him for being late, Sasuke merely sent him a blank look that didn't really express any irritation.

After all, Sasuke had been rather entertained these past few hours, getting through the story of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi.

"My first impression of you? You're all so bland I can't even hate you guys." Stated the rather colorful silver haired Shinobi, who seemed at best unimpressed with his team.

* * *

At the rooftop, Kakashi sighed when he noticed that while the quiet blond and the Uchiha had gotten to the roof in his exact specification, the pinkette had taken an entire minute above the limit and came in looking quite exhausted. He'd have to work on that, if they came anywhere near close to passing, anyway.

"So… Now that you're all here, how about introducing yourselves? Pinky, you go first." Kakashi said.

Pinky caught her breath, then seemed at a loss of what to do.

"You know, your name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams, favorite volume of Icha Icha, those things." Kakashi said, waving his hand, already recognizing the huge problem she had with her inability to think on her own and overreliance on authority figures providing her with direct orders. That was the symptom of a Shinobi who would never progress past genin and he would fix it ASAP.

"Oh… Well, I'm Haruno Sakura, and what I like… I mean the person that I like is…" She blushed and looked at the Uchiha, who completely ignored that and forcefully averted his attention away from her.

Kakashi noted it would most likely cause continued problems in the team dynamic. Sakura, it seemed, had the most problems he'd have to work with, even if they were all minor problems that he could solve with relative ease.

"And I dislike Naruto-baka!" The blond, meanwhile, didn't even seem to register the obvious attack on his person, which only infuriated Sakura further. However, she seemed to regain her calm under Kakashi's bored gaze. "My hobbies are reading and studying…" a confession that caused Sasuke to snort. It was a wonder that she disliked Naruto so much simply for reading all the time if she knew the joys of reading herself. "And my dream is…" She looked at Sasuke and blushed bright red.

Kakashi resisted the urge to facepalm, Sasuke did facepalm and Naruto did… absolutely nothing.

She then seemed confused. "What's Icha Icha?" she asked. Both the Uchiha and Kakashi looked at her with odd expressions in their faces.

"Okay, Duckie, your turn." Kakashi commanded, causing Sasuke to frown at him.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like training and tomatoes and dislike those who don't take their training seriously." He sent a meaningful glance at Sakura, but she merely interpreted it as praise and acted more than a bit proud of said fact, blushing and smiling. "My dream is to surpass my elder brother and become the leader of the Military Police." Then he seemed thoughtful. "I also haven't read Icha Icha." He at least seemed to know what Icha Icha was.

That was an improvement, Kakashi summarized.

"Okay, blondie, your turn now."

Naruto looked at him with a deadpan expression on his face over the edge of his book.

"It's an order." Kakashi said, a tad more forcefully.

"Uzumaki Naruto." Sasuke was stunned. It was the first time he'd ever heard Uzumaki's voice. It was… ridiculously soft. It was odd, considering just how strong Sasuke knew him to be. Then again, he was tiny, thin and fragile looking, yet was far stronger than one would expect even from a Shinobi.

Sasuke guessed that this was just even more proof that Uzumaki was perhaps one of the most perfect Shinobi he could think of. He was as threatening as… well, an underfed ten year old boy. The fact that he also somehow managed to make his mother forget about her Shinobi training just to go 'Kawaii!' and almost choke him on her breast made him an even more effective Shinobi.

Even Sasuke could notice that Uzumaki was adorable at times, given how wonderfully naïve he seemed to be of anything that did not involve killing people.

" I like training. My hobby is training. My dream… is becoming Hokage." The blond said, his voice still as soft and low key as ever. It had managed to stun all three of them into silence. Sakura, after all, hadn't ever heard so much as a grunt from Uzumaki and Sasuke imagined that Kakashi was more surprised about a lack of mentioned dislikes. "My favorite is… Blitz Tactics…"

Kakashi actually smiled under his mask and ruffled the blond's hair, act which had no reaction from the blond whatsoever. "You've got good taste, then." He said, more than a tad cheerful. He grew even more cheerful, however, when he stood up and looked ready to Shunshin away. "Okay, then, you guys should get ready. Be on Training Ground Three tomorrow at five sharp for your real genin test."

Sakura gasped. "But we've already had a genin test!"

Kakashi gave them an odd eye-smile. "I'm a tad harsher with my test than the academy. After all, nobody has ever passed it!" He said, leaning down. "And do you want to know a secret?" He said in a conspirator's tone. "I don't think any of you will pass, either!" he said. "I recommend you don't eat breakfast, you might just puke it out!" with that, he was gone in a flash of smoke and leaves.

And then, it had been official. At least in Sasuke's mind.

There was, after all, no chance he'd fail that test!

* * *


	2. The Three Of Legend, Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long ago, Hanzo declared the three who survived against him the legendary three ninja, based on their prowess. However, as they say, there is always someone bigger, and Team 7 has a tradition of surpassing their predecessors and teachers, doesn't it?

Sakura had no doubt about Sasuke passing. He was the best of the genin, so of course he'd pass.

It never occurred to her, however, that Sasuke had yet to defeat or even put Uzumaki on the ropes, and while Sasuke had closed in the distance, the sheer physical difference between the boy two years her junior had made victory close to impossible.

What she didn't know was her own chances of passing. She might be the Kunoichi of the Year, but she had never defeated one of the boys in a spar. Even those on the lower range of grades had found her easy to defeat. Sakura had always taken comfort in that none of the girls could beat her in pretty much anything.

Yet now, watching how Uzumaki and Sasuke went through their morning exercises… she felt inadequate. Woefully inadequate. Uzumaki was a monster, plain and simple. It did not matter what Sasuke did, how complex and creative the tactics he used were or how fast Sasuke executed them.

Uzumaki was so ridiculously fast that Sasuke could only lad glancing blows at best and so strong that even when Sasuke landed a full blow, they were shrugged off with ease. Sakura noticed that Uzumaki's body was covered in bandages, and almost immediately assumed they were injuries from training too hard.

She'd always thought Uzumaki never trained or studied for anything. All he read was stupid fantasy stories and while he did the exercises the teachers ordered him to do, so did Sakura. Then again, she herself didn't train outside the academy. She had, however, on occasion followed Sasuke after class to watch him train until he started disappearing into the city.

Probably had noticed them and did not like being watched. Understanding his wishes, Sakura had stopped looking for him.

Maybe… they trained together? Sasuke had been moderately friendly to the blond since their second year, ever since he'd defended the boy from the bullies that somehow managed to get away with anything they did to him. The boy almost never was physically touched, since it was hard to get a hold of him to beat him up, but he did get just about any other form of abuse thrown his way.

Whilst Sakura's parents had told her to stay away from him because he was a troublemaker, she didn't understand how, or why, Uzumaki had earned such a bad rep with the adults. Was it simply the fact that he was an easy target?

She didn't like thinking about it, but she had time to ponder, since it had been only an hour so far and if her suspicions were correct the asshole that was their teacher would come in three hours late again. Therefore, she had fallen into analyzing both her own behavior and her dedication to her training.

Sasuke never made it a secret that he had a rather… strong dislike towards his fangirls. In fact, the only females he ever talked to where mostly adults and the few girls in class who did not belong to his fanclub (and even then they'd ended up harassed by said club because they had the attention of the class' most popular boy). Sakura had always thought she was exempted from that, as she was the best of her peers…

… Until that morning. The one thing that Sasuke said to her was that she was as annoying, or perhaps more annoying, than the rest and that if she wanted to, at the very least, be his friend, she should try to start working hard at being a ninja. Then she had asked why he paid attention to the dead last, who was a no-name orphan and a crappy ninja to boot.

Sasuke had said it clean and plainly. "Uzumaki is ten times the ninja you will ever be." He had said. No explanation, no justification.

And seeing their training… She was starting to believe it. Uzumaki was better than Sasuke. Plain and simple.

Sakura had had a revelation at that point. Since it was clear that she was not a worthy ninja in Sasuke's eyes, at the very least, she'd train hard and show him that she could be as good as him. That was the only way to his heart. Then again, she didn't want to end up over muscled and ugly…

Sakura's thoughts however, were stopped by a particularly harsh thud and the sound of Sasuke groaning out loud. Her brain yelled at her to go for the ingrained reaction, namely, chewing out Uzumaki for hurting Sasuke, particularly before an important exam but… This was what it meant to train as a Shinobi. You got hurt and you had to deal with the pain.

She saw Sasuke's determined expression as he stood up, even if he seemed a tad dazed from the harsh landing. Even though Uzumaki seemed to remain as unexpressive as always, the fact that the blond remained standing in what Sakura deemed his ready position (hands vaguely raised and legs slightly apart from each other) told her that the fight was nowhere near over.

What kind of training did either of them undergo to get right back up and continue fighting after they were knocked down? Weren't the friendly spars done until someone hit the floor? Her brain supplied the answer. Those spars were made so with the intent of them not hurting themselves. While it prevented injury, it also limited their growth as ninja.

Pain was the best motivator, that much she knew, and it forced you to get better on the fly lest you suffer more.

Even so, she actually stood up from the comfortable position she'd found against a tree and actually walked into the spar. "If you keep that up, you'll be too tired and hurt when Kakashi-sensei comes." She said, looking at Sasuke expectantly.

The Uchiha took a deep breath and looked at Uzumaki. While both had a fine layer of sweat covering their exposed skin, Uzumaki had yet to break his breathing rhythm. His stamina was something Sasuke couldn't ever quite match.

Ultimately, Sasuke nodded to Sakura and sat down on the soft grass, shortly thereafter beginning to stretch to get rid of the kinks before they formed. This was, after all, merely a warm up routine compared to what Uzumaki usually put himself through and what Sasuke had been approaching over the last year.

Uzumaki merely pulled out a book and began to read, as usual, except he was doing his own stretches while he did. It was… weird. Sasuke smiled fondly at the sight, finishing his stretches and laying down to take a rest. He did not push Sakura away immediately. They were a team and he might as well give her a couple chances to get over her fangirl complex.

He'd made his best attempt at explaining to her how much she sucked as a Kunoichi in his eyes. Maybe it'd give her the revelation she needed.

"Uh… Sasuke-kun…" Or maybe not, given the blush on her features. Then again, normally It'd be accompanied by a vaguely content smile. This time, her expression seemed more of… embarrassment? "I'm sorry for acting like a complete fangirl." She said, hanging her head.

Sasuke raised one eyebrow and looked at Sakura questioningly. "Sakura-san." Sasuke began, sounding as polite as he always did to the teachers. The formality was kind of odd, considering that Sasuke offered no politeness or formality to those he considered beneath him, namely, fangirls and useless ninja. "Words are easily spoken. Actions speak louder than a thousand words." Sasuke explained.

Then he looked at Uzumaki. Sakura understood what he meant. Uzumaki had demonstrated with his actions far more than Sakura had ever said with her words. Whereas Sakura's abilities on paper were far superior and more versatile than Uzumaki's, in practice Uzumaki would beat her ten times out of ten.

"If you want to earn my respect… then train. Train hard. If my suspicions are correct, Hatake will show up three hours late to our every meeting and in that time… In that time we will train on our own. Uzumaki will train regardless of what we do, but I think he likes the company." Sasuke said, smiling, standing up and cracking his neck. "For now… what do you say we do a bit of light exercise? It will help you loosen up and warm up so you can be ready for whatever Hatake has planned."

Sakura offered Sasuke her best smile. "Of course, Sasuke-kun… If you think it will help…" She said, a tad shier than she'd intended it to come out. She could not deny that Sasuke had a pretty smile. It was so rare to see one directed her way. In fact, Sasuke rarely smiled at all in the academy, and she understood why. He found Fangirls unnaturally annoying and their mere presence annoyed him into being a perpetual frowner.

Sasuke nodded.

Uzumaki seemed to lift his head only barely from his book to shoot a glance that Sasuke could not decipher at them. However, as always, Uzumaki merely returned to his book and to ignoring the world again for what seemed like an entire half hour until he stood up.

He walked up to Sakura and looked down at her. Sakura looked up, confused at what had merited Uzumaki's sudden interest in her, so she turned to Sasuke and saw him smiling. Uzumaki seemed to be waiting for something, though she couldn't tell what.

"I was going to spar with you… but he wants to do it himself." Sasuke said. Well, it seemed like that was what Uzumaki wanted. "Don't worry, while it doesn't look like it, he does know how to hold back, some times."

Sakura was a little afraid of the ten year old boy. Just about nobody was made to spar with him for the simple fact that only those with top grades in Taijutsu, namely the class' resident Hyuuga, Inuzuka and Uchiha, could remain in the same ring with him for more than thirty seconds, and even then, nobody had lasted upwards of a minute against him.

Yet, even as Sakura took up a shaky position, she could see Uzumaki analyzing her. She was a tad insulted when he shook his head. The boy then changed his stance to one resembling Sakura's.

She turned her face to look at Sasuke, who was humming thoughtfully. He approached her and, much to Sakura's mortification, actually moved her arms and legs, touching her, to different positions. She noticed that Sasuke seemed to be sneaking glances to the entirety of her body as he did, which caused an even bigger blush to sprout on her.

"There?" He asked, turning towards Uzumaki, who nodded. "Try to get used to that stance, Sakura. You're not built to be a physical powerhouse, so that means you will need to rely on superior skill and agility…"

As the Uchiha continued his explanation, Sakura could see Uzumaki nodding, as if to affirm Sasuke's words. Maybe, just maybe, Uzumaki wasn't as bad as she thought he was, if he at least cared enough to give her pointers on her Taijutsu.

Then again, he did not seem apologetic at all whenever he corrected her. She had to take pointers from both. While she knew how to throw a proper punch and the chains and kata that the academy had taught her, she didn't know very much about how to connect her moves together, or how to improvise whenever an opponent countered the basic academy style.

At the very least, when she got used enough to the stance, she noticed that it continued to get easier and easier to, as Sasuke had put it, improvise with different movements. Sasuke had explained to her that it was MUCH easier to defeat someone if you caught them unaware with an odd, unusual move that surprised them.

Uzumaki's entire style relied on doing things that the opponent wouldn't expect and dominating the fight on a technical level, Sasuke's own style was similar, but while Uzumaki was all about countering attacks, Sasuke's relied on preventing the opponent from attacking in the first place, which eliminated the major weakness of the interceptor fist, which was that a faster opponent made it pretty much useless.

They didn't know where Sakura's development would take her, but both she and Sasuke had talked and discussed long and hard about what kind of style would fit Sakura the most. She seemed to go for a more straightforward approach than either of her male teammates and, while her diet had ruined her physical development at the moment, there was nothing that prevented Sakura from getting better with a proper diet and exercise.

So her being a power-based fighter might make up for her lack of real skill or talent in the art of Taijutsu, even if it'd require more training.

Sakura had agreed to stop dieting and to take her exercises seriously, which had made Sasuke at least begin to consider her as a Kunoichi in training. After all, she could get better, and she would get better, if he helped her.

Maybe he'd even make Sakura Haruno into a competent kunoichi that would one day make it to Jounin. Would certainly be a challenge, but she seemed to have the will to improve.

So an Uchiha, a Haruno and an Uzumaki meet a Hatake…

… And nobody reacts to his presence. Sakura and Sasuke were resting from their light work out, having done only enough to keep their bodies warm since the time limit for what they expected Hatake to show up was approaching.

Uzumaki completely ignored the jounin as he looked at his team with a weird glint in his eye. "Rise and shine, my cute little maybe students! Time to begin the exam. " he called out cheerfully.

Sasuke moved to a sitting position and made a show of yawning rather exaggeratedly. Uzumaki merely rose to his feet and walked until he was right next to the other two as they stood up. "Okay, Sensei… we're ready."

"That's good." Kakashi said, nodding to the three. Then he pulled out an alarm clock from god knows where. "This is set for noon." He said, walking past them and setting it against the cold stone of the monument that dominated the training ground. He also placed a pair of boxed lunches at either side of it.

This caused both Sakura and Sasuke to look at him with apprehension in their faces. He simply waved a pair of silver bells in front of them. "The exam is simple. All you have to do is take one of the bells for yourself. Whoever has a bell, passes. Whoever doesn't, gets sent back. Furthermore, whoever doesn't have a bell will be tied to one of the training posts over there and forced to watch while everyone else eats." With a hand gesture, he indicated towards the three training posts that were not too distant to the monument itself. "Questions?"

"Uhm… Sensei, there are only two bells…" Sakura said. "This means that only two of us can pass…" She had gone bone white. Because she knew who would pass and who wouldn't. She had absolutely no chance and there was no doubt that if it came down to choose between them or her, both Sasuke and Uzumaki would choose each other.

"Yep!" Kakashi called out, still cheerful as ever. "I warn you, you won't succeed unless you come at me with the intent to kill!" He said. Beginning to walk away from them without a care in the world, he looked at them over his shoulder without a care in the world. "Okay… begin!"

Hatake saw the pinkette and the raven haired Uchiha disappear into the woods, although he could still see very clearly where they'd gone to. Sakura's hair poked out of the bush she'd hidden in and Sasuke had made too much noise when he dived into the woods.

The blond, meanwhile, sat down and continued reading his book like nothing had happened. This caused a bead of sweat to run down Kakashi's head. Clearly, Uzumaki was nothing like he'd expected him to be. The stereotypical silent one was usually the best of the bunch abilities-wise though they never were good at teamwork and usually failed this test epically.

Kakashi actually walked next to him, looked him over and, seeing his complete and utter lack of interest towards the test, decided to check on what the boy was reading. Much to his surprise, it was as a matter of fact the first volume of the Icha Icha Tactics series, a spin-off of the original paradise where the protagonist, now dubbed the Pervy Shinobi, decided to charm the women in power everywhere to take over the world after discovering a jutsu that would let him have a certain degree of control over their actions.

It was a nice story and the hero was too much of a nice person to actually force the girls to see things his way, instead hoping to convince them to aid willingly. Kakashi blinked upon noticing that he'd actually sat down and begun to read the story himself after pulling out his copy. Apparently, it was just ridiculous coincidence that he happened to be carrying that same book.

Hadn't Hatake Kakashi been as awesome as he was, he might not have heard the sound of two preteens' faces hitting the floor. It was such fun to mess with his genin's expectations. "You're gonna fail if you don't do anything, you know." Kakashi said, conversationally.

The blond did and said absolutely nothing to show he had reacted to the statement, instead, he continued reading like nothing had happened.

Can't say he didn't try to motivate the genin into passing. Oh well, he was getting to the good parts, where the main character seduced his first victim, disguising his activities as a training mission.

Without missing a beat, Kakashi batted away the kunai rushing straight at his face with the plate on the back of his glove. "You're gonna have to do better than that." Kakashi announced, standing up without even stretching his legs. "Lesson one… Taijutsu. I will teach you guys about it." He said, looking straight at where the Kunai had come from, easily seeing a few strands of Sakura's hair and some out of place, broken branches near Sasuke's hiding spot.

Sasuke grunted and rushed forward. He knew there was no way he'd defeat a jounin in Taijutsu, but even so, he had to try. Uzumaki was not going to help. That much was clear. It seemed as if Uzumaki had absolutely no interest whatsoever in Hatake or anything involving him. Even if he had no doubt Uzumaki would have been a boon…

Well, he'd thought about giving Sakura a chance, and what better way to do it than by giving her a chance to prove that she intended to get better by putting in some effort?

He engaged Hatake and went for distracting attacks. Moves that were easily predictable and which Hatake had no issue in parrying, blocking or outright dodging. But that was okay. Sakura should have taken her cue by now.

But it seemed she remained transfixed in her hiding spot. Sasuke frowned. However, he didn't relent, steadily leading Kakashi, who so far seemed to be bored in dodging all of his attacks and hadn't done anything to indicate he'd caught up to Sasuke's scheme, into the forested area where he'd have a harder time moving about.

Then, he sprung the trap he'd been preparing. He slammed his hands together and summoned four clones to distract Kakashi, actually taking a moment to scramble and lose himself amidst the clones. He had to hurry, because he doubted Kakashi had actually fallen for the ruse and was just humoring him.

His hands went into his kunai pouches at each leg and he grabbed two special kunai he'd prepared beforehand. Knowing that something like this would probably come, information obtained from Itachi in exchange for a bag of candy, he had decided he'd focus on immobilizing Kakashi. Originally, Uzumaki would've been helping him in this endeavor and he was certain that the small blond would've been an absolute nightmare to deal with for the jounin up close, but it seemed Naruto wasn't intent on graduating.

He had to have a plan, but Sasuke couldn't wait. He needed to execute his first. Uzumaki was still his rival and he'd be damned before he let him outdo him at this!

Kakashi saw the two Kunai coming, knew that their paths would cross right where his chest was and that all he needed to do to stop them from doing so was simply batting them away. He'd never been fooled by the clones and had kept his visible eye on the young Uchiha, seeing what he tried to do.

Instead of blocking the two kunai, however, he did the next best thing and simply took two steps back, seeing the Kunai fly off range…

… which was exactly what Sasuke expected him to do. Hatake seemed to enjoy displaying his superiority over his genin and he'd take the chances to do so. Dodging something was always harder than blocking or parrying, and Kakashi was more than capable of dodging such an attack.

Pushing chakra through the wires that Sasuke still held in his outstretched hands to insure a faster response, the Uchiha tugged on and changed the direction of the two Kunai, so that instead of flying past Hatake, they circled around him, wrapping him on razor sharp ninja wire as they did. The Uchiha smirked and utilized the most basic exercise for his elemental affinity he knew of: Channeling electricity through a metallic object.

Kakashi looked surprised for a full second, before he burst into smoke and a charred log. Sasuke grunted.

"That was nice. It seems you're leagues above your classmates in both Taijutsu and Ninjutsu." Kakashi said, from his perch sitting on a tree. "You're still a genin, though." He said, shrugging.

Sasuke shot a Kunai at Kakashi and when it hit him, he again dispersed into smoke, leaving nothing behind this time. The fact that the clone didn't even try to dodge the attack or block it in any way meant that it probably couldn't. This kunai had met no resistance whatsoever.

Sasuke did not stick around to let Kakashi have a chance at payback, however. This had made it evident that he could not handle Kakashi on his own. Therefore, he needed to find Sakura. She hadn't acted the first time, probably believing he wanted to face Kakashi on his own.

What kind of idiot bets on the odds of a genin against a jounin!?

He jumped through the woods, a burst of chakra heralding his every leap. Kakashi had been correct in that he'd been leaps and bounds ahead of the curve. He had the resources of the Uchiha clan behind him and since Itachi had been quite obvious in his intention to remain in ANBU rather than go back to the police force, Sasuke had been groomed to take over his father's place.

However, if Hatake was thinking that Sasuke was a stuck up brat because of it, the jounin would have a nasty surprise in his near future. Neither Itachi, Mikoto nor Fugaku, after all, tolerated a spoiled brat who couldn't work on a team because of an inability to see past his own ego.

He found Sakura standing, horrified, next to a tree, looking at an empty spot as if it contained the object of her nightmares… And Hatake creeping up behind her. Acting quickly, he attacked Hatake with one of his remaining Kunai (he'd have to remember to go over the training field to recover the ones he'd used already) and dived in behind Sakura, protecting her from whatever it was that Kakashi had planned for her.

"Eh!? Sasuke-kun!?" She nearly shrieked. "Then it was just…"

"Genjutsu." Hatake cleared up. "The most underestimated Shinobi art." He explained.

"Sakura." Sasuke said, palming a Kunai on his right hand and passing her one with his left. He was speaking lowly, using his right hand to hide his lips from view as he pushed Sakura back with his body, leaning away from the spot he'd heard Hatake's voice coming from. "I will distract him. Go for the bells." He said, feeling her nod against his back. She still hadn't turned around.

"Boo!" Hatake yelled, appearing right next to the genin standing back to back in the middle of the clearing. This startled them enough to separate and, true to his word, Sasuke immediately engaged the jounin, this time going full out and actually forcing him to try and keep him distracted.

Again, Hatake seemed to have very little to no trouble fending off his efforts, but regardless, Sasuke continued his assault, though he was quickly exhausting his personal library of movements and he'd quickly have to rely on the ones he'd learned from Uzumaki if he wanted to keep the man distracted. He was probably used to fighting just about anything from Konoha. The variations in Sasuke's own Interceptor Fist briefly gave the silver haired Shinobi pause, but he adapted to them just as easily as Sasuke shifted through forms.

It made him have a degree of respect for the man. That was the sheer ability that one needs to become a true Shinobi. Not just repeat the moves practiced one thousand times, but to adapt and learn new ways to defend yourself on the fly.

If only Sasuke knew a Raiton jutsu that he could use in melee range, this fight might have been in his favor. Regardless, he found out just how scarily effective Uzumaki's tactic of reckless fighting was. Uzumaki's movements, stances and attacks were filled to the brim with holes that were easy to exploit, and that was the whole point of the style.

Uzumaki knew where the juiciest holes were and his defense was based on simply waiting for the opponent to go for these and then execute the appropriate counterattack or, if the opponent caught up to that, simply utilize a move that left a hole too juicy not to exploit that was yet another trap.

Then again, Uzumaki was surprisingly limber and agile, so the more complex combos that made use of said advantage were closed off to Sasuke's less flexible body. Still, as he sidestepped one of Hatake's half assed punches, this one heading towards his face, Sasuke grabbed the hand and gave a mighty pull, which the jounin anticipated and jumped with.

A simple tactic so that instead of being smashed against the ground, he was thrown a good distance away from melee range and remained completely unharmed, somersaulting so he'd land on his feet.

Sasuke smirked, keeping his head down so Kakashi didn't see it.

Hatake had dodged, yes, but he had also miscalculated when he'd assumed that his only opponent was Sasuke. Sakura had taken the chance when her sensei lowered his guard and jumped at Kakashi, slamming her shoulder against his stomach and propelling him away with enough force to slam against a tree.

"That was a nice display of teamwork." Hatake commended them, landing on his knees on the floor and patting his sash, where he'd tied the bells earlier. There was a loud, distant ringing sound. "And just in time, too…"

"Yes!" Sakura yelled, waving the twin silver bells in the air, making them jingle as she did. "We passed, Sasuke-kun!" She cried in her happiness, actually jumping and glomping the Uchiha, who merely looked at her with one raised eyebrow. She blushed in embarrassment and let go, smiling apologetically and looking sheepish.

"Yes, yes, you passed." Kakashi said, looking specifically at Sakura. "However, since Uchiha and Uzumaki failed to get a bell by the time limit, they both fail."

This caused Sakura's jaw to fail. "W-Wait! There are two bells! Sasuke-kun did most of the work, I just took them…" She said, actually passing one of the bells to Sasuke. "And he has one, too!"

"That makes sense, I guess." Kakashi said, shrugging. "Anyway, Uzumaki still fails, because he didn't do anything." He announced.

Sasuke frowned. Had Uzumaki really intended to fail? Reading his intentions, at all, was something rather complicated. In fact, Sasuke never quite knew what exactly Uzumaki was thinking at any given time, but… he didn't seem the kind to graduate from the Shinobi academy just to fail his jounin's examination on purpose.

And there was something that was still bugging Sasuke since the last day. The first time he'd heard his voice, and all he'd said had been things that Sasuke already knew except for the last revelation. Uzumaki wanted to be Hokage. Well, it certainly didn't seem like it, since he did nothing to hint at that being his goal.

This was only one more piece of Uzumaki's weirdness. Why fail this test on purpose? Sasuke couldn't figure it out, even as he, Hatake and Sakura walked over to where Uzumaki was still reading.

When both he and Sakura sat down, Hatake looked intently at Uzumaki for a full minute. "Stand up." He ordered, which Uzumaki complied to without a word. "Stand against the post." He added, which, again, Uzumaki complied to without a word.

Hatake went to work on tying him up, being more than a tad harsh.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Hatake questioned, looking at the tied up blond with a critical eye. As was usual for the blond, there was no reaction. Shaking his head, Kakashi sat down with the genin. "Okay, guys, let's eat." He said, pulling his book from one of his pockets.

"But… sensei… will we really eat in front of Uzumaki-san?" Sakura said, sounding more than a tad conflicted about it. There was no doubt that Uzumaki had to be hungry, if he had heeded their sensei's warning and avoided breakfast.

Hatake offered her an eye-smile. "Uzumaki-san did nothing to help either of you and simply sat here reading his book. So, he gets to watch you guys eat while he gets nothing and later will be sent back to the academy!"

Sasuke sighed. "Isn't there any way he can pass?" He asked. He didn't know if it was concern for the one person who'd called him a friend and whom he considered a friend, but even so, he didn't feel right just leaving Uzumaki to the wolves.

Hatake seemed thoughtful. "I guess I can give him a makeup test…" He said, rubbing his chin. "But that test will be taken as a team. Which means that you will have to relinquish the bells and you have a chance of failing all over again."

This seemed to give the both of them pause. Sasuke actually glanced at Sakura, to gauge her reaction, seeing her hesitating, Sasuke sighed. "I accept those terms." He said, passing his bell over to the jounin, who didn't seem too concerned at the thought of having to give them a make up test.

Sakura looked thoughtful for a moment. "I accept those terms, too." She said, finally, looking at Hatake, who raised one eyebrow.

"Hm? I understand why duckie would, but why you? After all, you have no real reason to risk your passing for Uzumaki-san." The silver haired jounin spoke, eyeing the pinkette questioningly.

"Uzumaki-san… is a much better ninja than I am." Sakura had been wondering just exactly the blond had been thinking when he'd just outright refused to do anything in the test whatsoever. "So… it stands to reason that if Sasuke-kun and me passed this test, that the three of us together would pass the next one!"

"But only two of you can pass." Hatake stated, blinking and leaning back. "And you yourself admitted that they're both better than you, so… are you willing to take the chance that you might not pass?"

Sakura looked down and seemed thoughtful. She knew, for a fact, that if she chickened out now there was no way Sasuke would ever forgive her. At the very least, even if she didn't pass, she'd earn the Uchiha's respect and she would be able to try again, when she was actually worthy of passing and didn't have to rely on Sasuke to fight her battles for her.

Hatake hummed and accepted the bell that Sakura offered him.

"And what about you, Uzumaki? Are you willing to take this chance?" Hatake questioned.

Uzumaki remained silent for a few seconds, unmoving… Until he nodded.

"Congratulations, you all pass." Kakashi announced, smiling widely.

"What!?" Sakura called out, sounding more than a tad surprised.

"To tell you guys the truth, the whole point of this test was to see whether or not you could work as a team and it was quite obvious to me that you could, even before you began so… I had already passed you guys this morning to begin with. When you guys actually trained together." He explained.

"But… Then why did you try to break us apart, then?! If we hadn't taken the makeup test, Uzumaki-san would've failed and been sent back to the academy!" The pinkette said.

Hatake sighed. "Uzumaki-san noticed there were only two bells and chose to bite the bullet so you two could pass." The jounin explained, running a hand through his hair. "Am I correct?"

Uzumaki merely nodded, still tied up, though looking about as bored as ever.

"So…" Sakura swallowed. "Uzumaki-san sacrificed his chance to pass for me, then? Had he and Sasuke-kun tried to take the bells, they'd have probably succeeded much more easily… I had a lucky shot…"

Hatake shook his head. "The plan Sasuke executed was solid and would have worked on a chunin level opponent, which was the level I was fighting at." He explained. "I need you all to understand, however, that no matter how clever you are, you won't be able to face a superior opponent on your own. You will need your comrades. You have taken the steps in the right direction by sharing what you know and helping your teammates."

The silver haired jounin offered them an eye smile as they ran the words through them. "But… your orders pretty much forced us to abandon one member of the team so the rest could pass… If Uzumaki-san hadn't made the sacrifice and all three had worked together we would've had to fight amongst ourselves to see who got the bells." Sakura said. "I would've lost, no doubt."

"Uzumaki-san knows something very important. Sometimes, the success of a mission requires a sacrifice that not many are willing to make. This is a lesson you will learn with time and when maturity comes. He is a special case." Obviously. Sakura had never quite seen someone as weird as Uzumaki. Even Shino, the class' resident Aburame who was quiet and reserved, spoke when he needed to, while she was certain she'd only heard one sentence in her entire life come from Uzumaki's mouth. Not even a sound had been emitted by the silent blond. "But you two… you two learned something even more important than that today." Kakashi said, turning around and staring off into the horizon. "You, Sakura, in particular."

Sakura blushed in embarrassment. She didn't know what exactly her teacher was talking about, as she was certain that she had been the most pathetic out of the three and that she'd passed only because of her teammates, while Kakashi seemed to think otherwise.

"It's been said that those who don't follow the Shinobi rules are trash…" Kakashi said, his voice gaining a sad, almost nostalgic quality. "But those who abandon their comrades?" He said, turning around to see the confused stares of his three genin. It was odd to get a reaction from the blond, so he treasured every one of them. "They are worse than trash. Remember that."

Sasuke, off the corner of his eye, saw the smile on the blond's face. It was tiny, a mere curling on his lips. But it was still a sight to see. Sakura, as well, noticed it, since she had chosen to look at her teammates, unable to look at her sensei's tall figure, trying to gauge their reactions.

Only then did Sakura understand why Sasuke seemed so fond of the blond. That timid smile that threatened to break through his usual stoic demeanor… at that moment, Sakura felt like she could take on the world to protect that smile.

Without further ado, Hatake Kakashi declared Team 7 officially formed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team 7 needs to become a team. Hanging around together is, well, a start.

Maybe, just maybe, Sasuke considered, graduating was overrated. So far, all that graduating had granted him was two pictures of his team. One was them in their team picture with him at the left side, with one of Kakashi's hands messing up his hair, offering the camera a confident smile, Uzumaki was to his right, not even having to lean down considering how tiny he was, despite Kakashi leaning over them, with his usual non-expression and a blushing and seemingly annoyed Sakura, who was busy trying to fend off the hand that threatened to mess up her hair.

That picture was nice.

The other, meanwhile, was one he didn't even know would be taken. In fact, he hadn't quite expected the reason for the picture in the first place. Namely, both his and Sakura's faces as they received their first D rank mission. Uzumaki, as was usual, didn't seem to react at all to the information, even if he'd actually lowered his book long enough to look at the Hokage and the chunin manning the mission desk.

The elder ninja had shared a good laugh at their indignation.

And why wouldn't they be pissed about getting a mission to weed an old man's garden? Sasuke had not trained his body as much as he had to weed peoples' gardens. No, Uchiha Sasuke was a born and bred warrior, dammit!

Even so, he had not uttered a single complaint. Instead, Sasuke just bent down and started pulling anything that seemed similar to the weeds that the old jackass wanted removed from his garden. He did it in a particularly vicious manner, taking his frustrations with them.

"Uhm… You should be more careful..." Sakura muttered, discreetly replanting a small, golden-colored flower that had been upturned from Sasuke's careless activities. Sasuke sighed and tried to offer an apology, but she just shook her head. "Teammates look out for each other." She said.

This left Sasuke impressed. Apparently, Sakura had taken their teacher's words to heart. Then again, the man HAD stated that Sakura had taken the lesson most seriously to begin with. That very morning, while they waited for their sensei to come, Sakura had come to him and Naruto and gone through with their morning exercises.

Sasuke did not exactly know when he'd started to actually respect and like Haruno Sakura as a person, but most assuredly, it had to be when she'd taken his verbal beating to heart and actually changed herself into an actually competent kunoichi, if a bit weakened from lack of proper upbringing.

He noticed her wince as she tugged on some weeds, and saw her cradling her wrist briefly, before continuing her conflict with the stubborn plantlife. Seeing this, Sasuke put his hand around their base and pulled harshly, removing a chunk of the soil along with the weeds. Whatever these things were, they were apparently rooted into the ground. Sasuke frowned and then turned towards Sakura. "If your arm still hurts, you should probably talk to Sensei."

Hatake might have made an impression on him yesterday, but Sasuke was still on the fence about having a teacher that showed up three hours late every day and simply took them on a mission without saying a word about training. Then again, it was their first day and maybe Hatake simply preferred to train in the afternoons.

Uzumaki seemed to have no trouble whatsoever in his methodical approach at pulling the weeds, which was odd. His arms had taken quite a beating from Sakura earlier that morning, since training with a moving target was always more effective than wailing on a stationary dummy, if a tad more painful.

The little blond might have been in pain for all that his team knew, he just refused to show it. It made Sasuke frown internally. That behavior wasn't healthy. Internalizing all of one's pain and refusing to seek outside help could turn one into a psychotic wreck. Itachi had come very close to breaking down when the tensions between his clan and the village ran high before the Sandaime defused the situation with a public display of trust in the Uchiha despite the famous traitor who'd used his sharingan to lead the Kyuubi into Konoha, although nobody had ever learned of his identity.

For all everyone knew, it might not have been an Uchiha to begin with, since the only proof was a sharingan that could have been stolen.

Itachi had almost snapped back then since he was the link that kept Sasuke's father and the Hokage connected and the pressure of being an ANBU captain at his age as well as the hope of both the Uchiha and the Hokage that the situation might be solved without bloodshed had not helped.

The night that Itachi had confessed everything to him and had cried for the first time since Sasuke had any memory to speak of was etched into his memories and he didn't want to see anyone break down like that ever again. Much less Uzumaki, who had no family who would hold him when he cried himself to sleep.

They continued with their efforts, weeding the garden, for an entire half hour before they were finally done. The man seemed to actually be cultivating the god damned weeds, which had Sasuke swearing that next time, he'd just Goukakyuu the entire garden and be done with it.

"That's good, team!" Kakashi called, appearing in a burst of speed in the perfect middle of the triangle that Team 7 had created. It was kind of eerie how good he was at falling into team formation or pulling a new formation out of his ass. "I've got confirmation from the client that the mission is complete!"

And Sasuke snorted at that. The client had been looking intently at their progress, directing a harsh stare at the youngest member of the team for most of that time. Sasuke did not know what it was about Uzumaki that irritated people so… well, except Uzumaki's demeanor. It kind of made him want to punch the blond at times, too, but even that would be easily discarded as a reason.

There were, after all, far more annoying ninja than Uzumaki. At the very least, the blond easily fell into the background and was easy to ignore, considering how he didn't call attention to himself at all.

Add one mystery to Uzumaki. Maybe his parents would know something about it? After all, they always seemed far too friendly towards Uzumaki, contrasting with the majority of the population of Konoha. "Finally…" Sakura said, wiping the sweat from her brow. The Land Of Fire was quite warm and the sun was unforgiving, even though afternoon seemed to approach quickly.

"Let's report the completed mission and then we'll be done for the day!"

Sasuke dearly hopped, as they regrouped, that Hatake had not meant there would be no training for the day. He was looking forward to getting training from a jounin, particularly one as impressive with his combat abilities as Hatake was said to be. Even if Sasuke had yet to see if he was worthy of his reputation, Hatake had proven to be, at the very least, worthy of his rank.

* * *

Sasuke hung his head, before a hand rose to cradle his face. He was sorely disappointed by Hatake's antics. He'd just said 'have fun' and disappeared. He'd given them no direction whatsoever and just told them that their duties were over for the day.

The young heir of the police force was not done with his training for the day. Not even close. Now he didn't have the academy cutting into his training time, so he had to make the best of it. Uzumaki didn't even miss a moment, almost immediately beginning to go through his usual series of warm up exercises.

Sasuke followed and, after a moment of hesitation, so did Sakura. Sasuke decided to slow down his pace, deciding to observe and gauge Sakura's stamina. After all, she herself didn't know her limits as she scarcely ever challenged them. He went through short series of varied exercises, the quick changes designed to never let any part of the body cool down for too long.

Ninja did not need large muscles and they were, in fact, a hindrance. Ninja needed a leaner body that was strong but supple and flexible that could withstand the continued abuse brought on by battles that could last as long as hours…

… Or all of two seconds.

One never knows.

Regardless, he almost immediately noticed that Sakura's stamina left much to be desired. She could not keep up with the rater slow pace that he went through his warm up at. This was not good. She might have the will to improve, but it'd take a lot of work to bring her up to snuff. Hell, even Sasuke himself wasn't up to par, but then again he used Uzumaki as a measuring stick and that guy trained religiously.

To the point that Sasuke could already see him running laps around the training ground, head stuck in his ever-present book. Somehow, he managed to read even more than their teacher, and all the guy ever did was read porn while he provided 'moral support' from the sidelines in today's mission.

It was probably Uzumaki's way of actually training himself to multitask. Reading and running while at the same time remaining aware of your surroundings enough not to trip on anything was actually a multi-layered exercise.

Or maybe Sasuke was just looking too hard into it while he waited for Sakura to regain her breath. She looked a little green. Probably not used to eating enough to fill her stomach. He sat in front of her as she rested and sighed. "Are you okay?" He asked.

She shook her head, looking sick.

"You'll get better eventually." He said, standing up and shaking his own head. "You're not used to it." The Uchiha explained.

"But… I'll never catch up to Uzumaki like this…" she said, looking at Uzumaki as he ran, back and forth, using very sharp turns instead of running in a circle. She supposed that it helped to change directions quickly but it didn't seem healthy to put such a load on your legs and then shift directions so quickly, a single bad movement could snap his bones.

Sasuke actually laughed and shook his head. Well, it was good to aim high, but maybe a tad too high. Uzumaki could only be described as a monster. A freaking monster that never got tired, never felt pain and never stopped. Sasuke had seen the guy pound the training posts to the point where he'd ripped the flesh off his own fists.

Come to think of it, he still did it. It just took him longer since Sasuke knew it'd happen and distracted him however he could before he could injure himself. That was food for thought. Uzumaki's zeal in training was both a boon and a curse, since Sasuke did NOT like seeing the boy hurt himself like that. It reminded him of his own times pounding the training posts uselessly while his father praised Itachi over him.

"You're spacing out." Sakura noted, standing up on somewhat wobbly legs. She seemed to have lost that habit she had of blushing at mere physical proximity. That was good. She might have been faking it, but he liked to think it was progress.

Sasuke shook his head, but did not apologize. "You feeling better?"

Sakura nodded.

"We'll stretch and then we'll be done for the day."

Sakura's stomach growled as she imitated Sasuke's movements, although as was expected of her slimmer and feminine body she managed to stretch further than him. When they were done, Uzumaki was already done with his own exercises, as well, although Sasuke hadn't been observing him so who knows what the blond had put himself through.

The fact that Sakura's stomach continued its protests made her blush rather fiercely from embarrassment, but she knew better than to voice her concerns out loud.

The Uchiha's own stomach growled as well and he knew that nobody was home in his house. His father tended to come in quite late, his brother could be gone for weeks at a time and his mother was currently on a mission with her new Genin team, her last one having dissolved after two members were promoted and the other was reassigned.

Thinking it over, Sakura decided the best course of action. "Uhm… Sasuke, do you want to accompany me to find something to eat?" She asked, shyly looking up at the Uchiha, kicking the ground with her other leg in a gesture that was no doubt meant to evoke the image of a sad little girl. Basic Kunoichi Manipulation.

This caused the Uchiha to sigh. He'd been certain she had been improving. Well, it was work in progress, he guessed, he just had to reject her until she understood that he did not look at her that way and that she should take her training more seriously than romantic pursuits…

… but then again, maybe she was simply fishing for a reward. If she didn't get rewarded for her efforts, she might consider putting in any effort at all to be pointless. What to do?

"What about you, Uzumaki-san?" Asked Sakura, whirling around and taking the choice away from Sasuke. He had, however, seen her face contort after his hesitance to answer. Sakura, it seemed, had understood that he wasn't entirely against the idea and had probably guessed why. Her good grades, after all, hadn't been only because of her unnaturally good memory.

Uzumaki looked at her for an instant and then nodded. Then he began walking, much to their shock. He was mid-way out of the training ground when he turned around, with a bored look on his face.

"I… think he wants us to follow him." Sakura said. Uzumaki nodded. "Okay, then…" Sakura said, shrugging. Sasuke simply nodded and began walking behind Sakura at a brisk pace, since Uzumaki didn't seem keen on waiting.

Uzumaki lead them through the village, walking without a care in the world as he was wont to, though strangely enough, there was no book in Uzumaki's hands and there seemed to be a spring to his step that Sasuke and Sakura were both surprised by.

The blond had yet to display enthusiasm for anything. Even for what was arguably his only hobby, training, he simply went and did it. Well, one can get bored from just about anything if one does it for too long. Yet, why exactly Uzumaki seemed enthusiastic was beyond either of the other members of Team 7. Maybe he just enjoyed their company?

After they'd broken through the crowds in the market district, they took a few turns that lead them away into a decidedly poorer part of the city. Whereas before most buildings were well kept, oft ranging from rather nice one story building to ostentatious two story manors, right now they'd gone into a part of town where there were no houses that one could call nice.

There were small kids running around, playing, throwing paper shuriken at each other. There were adults, carrying things, running and bustling. It was decidedly dirtier and poorer than what either Sakura or Sasuke were used to, but being new and fascinating, it kept their interest.

What also gained their interest was the fact that people looked pointedly away from them… no, that was wrong. Sasuke had noticed people staring at him and the fan on the back of his blue shirt. No, they were pointedly looking away from the ten year old boy walking a few steps ahead of him and Sakura.

Uzumaki just got more interesting with each passing moment.

Whereas Sasuke was fascinated by this new part of the village he'd been to, Sakura seemed a tad more… reserved, often keeping her eyes forward and avoiding eye contact with anyone. She was, for lack of a better word, afraid of what she considered a bad neighborhood. Sakura had never wandered away from the general area of her parents' ancestral home that had belonged to her great grandparents, and it was a rather nice neighborhood.

Sasuke did notice, however, that every once in a while, somebody would look Uzumaki directly in the eye, with undecipherable looks on their faces. It was highly odd. He also briefly noticed a mugger trying to take a woman's purse only to find out the woman was a Kunoichi and had to stifle the laugh at the thug's face when he'd been left groaning against the floor.

It was probably thanks to her headband, which held her hair away from her face, that the few people who'd looked oddly at them (at her, more specifically) hadn't approached the trio yet. Then again, anyone who took one look at Uzumaki then looked pointedly away. It was odd and distracting, considering Uzumaki was as threatening as a baby kitten.

It did not take long for the blond to lead Team 7 where he wanted them to be.

It was a stall. A simple stall that had clearly seen better days. There was graffiti on one of its sides, though it was washed out and barely noticeable anymore. There was also a big board with 'Ichiraku Ramen' written on black kanji. The smell was… quite inviting, actually, and it made both Sasuke and Sakura lean forward.

Naruto walked in through the flap, hopping to the seat that was only slightly shorter than him. "Ah, Naruto-kun, that you?" asked a tired voice. Uzumaki nodded, and when Sasuke and Sakura noticed what he was looking at they saw the ramen chef, no doubt Ichiraku himself, already busy preparing a bowl of ramen that within seconds was in front of Uzumaki along with a pair of chopsticks.

The sheer gusto with which Uzumaki devoured his ramen almost knocked Team 7 a few steps back. Okay, he loved ramen. No doubt about it.

"Come on in! I take it you're Naruto-kun's team, eh?" The warm and inviting voice of the stall's owner said from behind the flaps, enticing said team to enter and seat themselves to either side of Uzumaki, in an odd imitation of their team picture. "What can I get you?"

Sakura seemed to hesitate for a second. "Miso's fine." She said. Ichiraku nodded and turned to Sasuke.

Sasuke seemed to take a few seconds longer. "Do you have anything with tomato on it?" He asked, after a few moments deliberating.

"I'll see what I can do." The owner said with a smile. He worked fast, going to and from, slicing vegetables with ease and stirring the pot with a slow, trained hand. "So… I hope Naruto-kun hasn't caused too much trouble for you, lads." The ramen chef said, turning to the two while the ramen cooked.

"None at all… Uzumaki-san is a very talented ninja." Sakura said, conversationally. "Uhm… If you don't mind me asking, how did you two meet?"

Ichiraku chuckled. It seemed he had actually been expecting the question. "Well, Naruto-kun happened to be passing by the front of my stall and I thought he seemed like he was hungry, so I invited him in. And he's been a regular ever since." The man said, turning around and returning to his stove, serving Sakura her Miso ramen and, an instant after, an experimental flavor focused around the taste of tomatoes to Sasuke.

It was surprisingly good, well, Sasuke liked it, anyway.

"Oh… That simple?" Sakura said.

"Well, I offered him a bowl of ramen for free and he liked it." Ichiraku said, randomly handing Naruto another bowl and taking the empty one. "So… that's pretty much it."

Sasuke blinked. So did Sakura. Well, simplicity made sense. And the ramen WAS good.

"I'm back!" Yelled a rather cheerful feminine voice, as a girl that was clearly at least five years older than either Sasuke or Sakura walked through the flaps, smiling cheerfully as she wandered in with a paper bag holding the groceries she'd no doubt gone out to buy.

"Good timing, Ayame." Said the ramen stall's owner, gesturing with his eyes at the three clients on the counter eating their respective bowls.

Ayame blinked and then looked at them. Almost four seconds later, Uzumaki was taken away from his meal as he was lifted off the stool and pressed against Ayame's bosom. "You're as cute as ever, Naruto-kun!" She half-said half-squealed, waving the little boy around who seemed completely unaffected by said display.

Sasuke turned to Ichiraku. "Does that happen with every adult woman? My mother did the exact same thing." There was no jealousness in Sasuke's voice, no sir, and no, that wasn't envy right there, where his left eyebrow was twitching.

Ichiraku shrugged.

Sakura frowned, looking at Uzumaki, who was yet to make any movement to extricate himself from the bosom of the woman just entering adulthood who seemed to be chatting rather animatedly with him, although of course she was the only one of the two to speak. Uzumaki nodded or shook his head every once in a while.

However, there were more important things to focus on. Namely, the quite delicious bowl of Miso ramen that was growing colder by the second. Sakura went back to eating, keeping an ear open nonetheless. She learned many things about Uzumaki that afternoon. Namely, she learned that Uzumaki used to come every day when he was in the second year of the academy, often for dinner after training and that apparently he'd gone to eat at Sasuke's house several times.

It kind of irked her that Uzumaki had achieved so easily what she'd been trying to achieve for years, namely, to become close to Sasuke… but then she mentally slapped herself. It was dumb to think like that and Sakura prided herself in her intellect.

She also learned how Sasuke had become friends with Uzumaki, specifically, and her respect for both of them grew. Uzumaki apparently trained until he'd turned his limbs into unrecognizable lumps of flesh (although Sasuke had been working to curb that practice considering that it could have harmful effects in the long run and was not conductive to missions at all) every day. That took balls.

Sasuke had seen him doing exactly that and had been there to help him when he hurt himself more than usual, and from then on, Sasuke had just stuck around the blond because the blond obviously didn't take care of himself so someone had to. It was odd to hear that coming from a boy her age. Then again, Sakura understood the feeling.

As soon as Sakura began to ignore her parents' warnings regarding Uzumaki and actually took the time to get to know him, he was about as threatening as a kitten. Sure, he might be a complete monster in a fight, capable of manhandling the one who'd graduated as Rookie Of The Year without much effort, but outside of that, when she looked at him now, being looked over and scolded by a girl who could've passed as a caring, protective elder sister…

She smiled and shook her head. It was evident that her parents were horrible judges of character. Uzumaki had done nothing against her and had actually helped her in her training. It kind of made her question why exactly her parents would call the boy a troublemaker she needed to stay away from…

She doubted it was his reputation. It'd been shot down immensely over the boy's last two years at the academy, even if Sakura's parents claimed the contrary happened amongst the housewives…

* * *

"Target in sight. Location confirmed." A calm, collected voice spoke. "Requesting permission to engage, over."

"Permission denied. We will surround the target and attack as a unit." Another voice, just as calm and collected, but decidedly more masculine, spoke. "Where is Fishcake?"

"Fishcake… is engaging the target."

"Dammit! I thought we'd planned this operation! Blossom, support Fishcake!"

"That… won't be necessary, Captain. Fishcake has subdued the target."

Sasuke blinked. Then he headed into the clearing where Sakura had gone to wait to ambush the target. There should only have been a fat cat with a big red ribbon on the left ear there, but instead, he found the usual blond boy holding the cat by the scruff of its neck. There were a few scratch marks on Uzumaki's face, some threateningly close to his left eye, and more than a few bite marks on his hands. But the cat seemed calm right now.

Sasuke blinked. "Mission Complete, then." He said, shrugging. "Who's carrying the cat?" He asked, seeing Sakura leap into the clearing next to him.

Uzumaki simply placed his free left hand around the cat's waist and held it secure against his small torso. The cat made no movement to resist the change in position, which made Sasuke suspicious for a second of it being dead, but it's big, round belly inflated and deflated at a steady rate, so at least it was alive.

The Uchiha turned around and looked at Sakura. "How did he subdue it?"

Sakura shook her head. "Trust me, you don't want to know."

For some reason, this killed Sasuke's curiosity.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen was not an easily surprised man. Nevertheless, his jaw hung open and his pipe dropped from its usual perch. "Ten… minutes?" he said, looking positively shocked.

"It left a trail of scratched and swearing people behind itself. It was easy to track." Sasuke said, shrugging. Leading it into the trap had been even easier. The cat reacted to every sound and retreated, all they had to do was lead it into a clearing where it wouldn't be able to use the trees to hide itself.

Then again, he hadn't expected Uzumaki to subdue it so easily after it'd proven so nimble and agile despite its bulk. That cat had to be a ninja cat.

"I'd like to request a C Rank mission."Hatake said, standing behind his team. Sasuke wanted to punch him in the nuts for leaving them to do two d ranks per day and not give them any training whatsoever.

This caused the Hokage to raise an eyebrow. "So soon? It's only been a week since you got your team, Kakashi, don't you think it's a little early?"

"Meh. They're ready." The jounin said, as nonchalant as ever. "And if they aren't, it'll be a good lesson anyway."

Had Iruka been manning the mission desk that day, he might have protested. As it was, the chunin manning the desk (the Hokage was just there to give the Cat mission, since he absolutely loved seeing the genin's faces when they came back with the cat) didn't give a flying fuck about it and merely offered them a C ranked mission from the pile.

A simple escorting job from here to the capital of the fire country. Easy, since the man was not a particularly wealthy merchant but was still carrying valuable cargo. The most they could expect was a bandit attack. Closing the scroll and finishing the explanation, Hatake nodded. "We'll take this one, Hokage-sama." He said, looking at his team. "We'll depart from the South Gate since we will have to stop by a few towns before going straight to the capital. Be ready at seven sharp. Pack for two weeks at the most.

* * *

Sasuke was unimpressed with the client, a man who seemed to think that the Shinobi he'd hired were his servants. Well, the only one he didn't seem to annoy was Hatake, who actually relayed his orders to the genin and watched them mutter curses under their breath.

Uzumaki, of course, did everything commanded of him without a word of backtalk, but Sasuke was beginning to be able to tell when Uzumaki didn't like doing something. While there was nothing as bloody obvious as his love of ramen, there were small cues that Sasuke had begun to pick up on. Like for example whether or not Uzumaki read intently while doing something or not. Right now, his eyes were glued to his book as he walked next to the caravan, which meant that he was probably not having a good time in the mission at all.

Sakura was exempted from the physically demeaning tasks by virtue of being a cute twelve year old girl who the merchant who'd hired them in the first place couldn't bring himself to force into doing what most civilians saw as traditionally male tasks. Every time they stopped at a town, the jackass would make them load and unload his cargo. He'd unload a few pieces of valuable cloth and pick up even more valuable pieces of cloth. It was an odd exchange to do.

Despite having a jackass client and a jackass teacher who was yet to teach them anything at all, Sasuke felt that it could've been worse. It was the first time he ever got out of his village, and even better, he was going to see the capital with his team!

When they finally hit the final town, a small woodcutters' village where the man merely left a few boxes and obtained a few coins in exchange, Sasuke thought that the mission was finally looking up. But in fact, it'd only get worse, way worse.

In the middle of nowhere, where there weren't even forests to distract himself by counting trees, Sasuke felt danger coming. And when he looked up in alert, he saw his teacher get struck by a colossal dragon of flame that rapidly reduced him to ashes.

The man who'd conjured the dragon, dressed in mostly white and purple, rushed forward, followed by two men who were just as tall, except each of them had a deformity that made them stand out. The one on the left had a horn growing from the side of his head and the one on the right had a freaking tail trailing behind him.

Maybe it was a weird Kekkei Genkai that made them sprout animal-like traits, but Sasuke wasn't willing to wait to get to know whatever their effects were. As a reaction to their attack, ignoring the sting of hopelessness that he felt at seeing a jounin who'd trounced him so easily taken out, Sasuke let loose a volley of Kunai and Shuriken that a blast of wind from the horned one knocked away.

No, it hadn't been a blast of wind.

It had simply been the man roaring and stopping the ninja weapons in their tracks.

That sheer power, to do that merely by roaring? What hope was there in fighting such opponents? He would surely lose and die.

Sasuke's eyes were glued to an orange blur as it sped towards the three. He knew that orange blur. He saw the small figure engage all three in melee combat. He felt any and all words die in his throat, and his ability to breathe hindered as he choked on them. Uzumaki had engaged three opponents in battle…

… and was losing. Horribly.

Despite greater agility, technique and strength, Uzumaki was simply outnumbered and the more experienced opponents covered each other perfectly, which made Uzumaki's counters far less effective, as the three monsters covered each other's holes whenever Uzumaki wanted to exploit them.

It wasn't long until one of them drew a long, wicked curved blade and, while Uzumaki was busy dealing with the other two, slashed it across the blond's back. An arc of blood shot from the wound, staining the blade, the wielder and the ground, though a quick reaction had rendered the wound a shallow one.

Sasuke scowled. He would not let himself be a coward. He would not just sit there and watch as Uzumaki dealt with the opponents he was too scared to.

Sakura had beaten him to the punch, though, as it had been her quick reaction, namely, flinging several shuriken and kunai at the distracted ninja wielding the strange curved blade, that had stopped the wound from being fatal. On top of that, she'd actually hit the man enough that he would most likely be out of the battle.

Taking advantage of their distraction, seeing their comrade nearly killed by a genin would distract anyone, Uzumaki decided to make the fight one on one by landing a devastating cross to the face of one of the unsuspecting monsters, which sent him flying back, and he spun around to roundhouse the other one, only to see the man-monster catch his leg and prepare to stab him with a kunai…

… Except Sasuke delivered a kick he'd later learn Maito Gai had patented as 'Dynamic Entry' to the side of the man's head, snapping his neck and sending him flying back, a fierce scowl on his face.

The horned one, the one that Sakura had taken out early into the fight, rose to his feet, blood still dripping from the Kunai imbedded into his body, jumped forward and tackled Sasuke to the floor while he was recovering from the earlier kick.

These people's skin was ridiculously hard, and Sasuke was certain that this was what hitting a brick wall felt like. Not to mention, they were also ridiculously strong. The problem? Sasuke was used to fighting with Uzumaki, who was not only ridiculously strong, Uzumaki also knew the many ways to destroy someone while these men were fighting like animals.

Sasuke's head snapped to the right and heard the sound of flesh meeting compacted dirt. Then his head went to the left and the other fist hit the ground. When the man growled and prepared to use both fists at once, an orange blur passed through Sasuke's field of vision and hit the horned man's chin, sending him flying away.

Uzumaki fell to his knees, however, holding himself up with his right hand. There was a sizable red mark on Uzumaki's stomach that was widening. Sasuke gasped at the sight of the first man he'd seen going through handsigns. "Raiton: Raisho(Lightning palm)!"

It seemed he was the group's ninjutsu expert, given that he'd been the only one to rely on it in the fight. The man shoved his lightning charged palm forward and struck Uzumaki who didn't even whimper as the lightning coursed through his body, merely dropped to the ground, paralyzed.

Sasuke rose to his feet quickly but was again blocked by one of the monsters, this time the one who had the tail. Maybe they'd just delayed the inevitable and they couldn't really fight off the three men who'd so easily killed their jounin sensei but…

Sasuke was pissed. Pissed at himself. Pissed because the one time he ever got to fight, he blew it. He had failed in protecting his client. He was already failing his first real mission. And worst of all, because Uzumaki had needed to protect him, the blond had gotten hurt, possibly lethally.

The Uchiha hadn't seen them inflict the wound on the blond's stomach, so he had to assume that Uzumaki had gotten it when he'd rushed to save him from the jackass pouncing on him. When the blond had fallen to the ground after getting shocked, Sasuke saw the Kunai sticking out of his back, so all he could assume was that the same man who'd shocked Uzumaki had stabbed him trying to stop him from getting to Sasuke.

It had been his fault that Uzumaki had gotten wounded so much. And now, all he wanted was to get to Uzumaki before

Sasuke blazed through handsigns, his anger fueling the chakra that he poured into the technique and brought his hands to his mouth. It'd taken him forever to master this one jutsu, but it was his pride. "Katon: Goukakyuu(Great Fireball)!" he yelled, letting loose a torrent of flames that quickly formed into a colossal sphere in front of him.

The man in front of Sasuke had leaped to assault Sasuke once again, most likely to repeat his interrupted earlier attack, only to find himself a pillow of flame. The man screamed and let loose a howl of pain, leaping away of the flame as soon as he had touched the ground, half-melted and burned.

Sasuke fell to his knees and ducked his head to avoid the retaliatory attack from… the man who still had the kunai sticking from his chest? These monsters just didn't stay down! When the man decided to use his weird curved blade to slash downward and kill the Uchiha for good, Sakura interrupted once again, this time actually stabbing the man with her kunai in the throat directly, a conflicted expression on her face.

The ninjutsu expert had leaped back when Sasuke had used the Goukakyuu and been going through handsigns again. "Katon: Karyu Endan!" the man yelled, letting loose a torrent of flame that put Sasuke's to shame which quickly took the shape of a roaring dragon that took to the sky and then headed down, to crash onto Team Seven and the two monsters…


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dealing with the dangers of being a shinobi and, of course, dealing with the dangers of having teammates who were not, as a matter of fact, psychologically ready to deal with them. Sasuke begins to wonder... Maybe shinobi shrinks are high paying jobs?

"Suiton: Suiryuudan(Water Dragon Bullet)!"

Sasuke had closed his eyes, expecting the fiery maws of the dragon to close on him and burn the life out of him, but all that hit him was a wave of relatively warm steam. Both of the monsters had been left pretty damn confused and the Uchiha could understand why.

He was pretty damn confused himself.

The one Sakura had stabbed in the throat reacted first and moved to choke the life out of the pinkette, but it seemed to stop mid step. It gurgled a bit, clutched its throat and dropped to the ground, finally drowning in its own blood.

The other one stood stock still for an instant before dropping to the floor, as well, a shiny metallic object sticking from his back exactly at the correct angle and position to have gone through the man-monster thing's heart and finally ended its rampage.

Sasuke let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding, seeing the familiar silhouette of his jounin teacher, who looked none too pleased at the man in the distance, who seemed to be running away rather intently, leaving a cloud of dust as he began to add chakra to his steps so he could run faster.

The Uchiha stood up, without casting a glance at the ground. If he didn't look at the dead bodies around him, they wouldn't spook him. He vaguely heard Sakura upchucking once the adrenaline wore off and she realized she'd killed someone. Hatake went to her side in an instant, holding her hair back and patting her back.

"I'm sorry, Sakura, but we won't get time to help you cope…" There was an odd quality to his words, as if he was containing his anger somehow.

"S-Sensei?" Sakura mumbled, looking up and trying to spit the horrible taste of bile away from her mouth. "W-Wha…"

Sasuke blinked and finally allowed himself to look down. There was something missing in his field of vision. There was no bright, spiky blond hair anywhere in sight. There was no glaring 'kill me' orange to force him to avert his eyes.

Well, there was. There were a few scraps of bloodied orange fabric.

Looking at where the man had escaped, Sasuke let out a loud, furious growl. Sakura blinked and looked around as well, finally settling her gaze on the very noticeable tracks left by the man.

"Don't worry." Kakashi said, his one visible eye looking focused for the first time since Sasuke had meet him. This fact alone had been enough that Sasuke had stopped referring to him as Hatake. He might have had grudging respect for the man's abilities and philosophy, but he had very little respect for him.

But now, seeing him so committed, Sasuke started to believe he might have misjudged the man.

"I am a tracker ninja. I will hunt that man down in no time. He won't be able to hide from me." He said, sounding so confident that he actually lifted a rather large weight from Sasuke's shoulders. It did not stop, however, the nagging feeling that it was somehow his fault. He was an Uchiha who had received training from his clan since he could walk. He should have been the best of the best. He'd been complacent and let Uzumaki go far past him.

And he'd gotten even more complacent and forced Uzumaki to pick up the slack. Of course, Uzumaki didn't have an entire clan's worth of techniques to fall back on.

Kakashi sighed and turned to the client. "This mission has gone far beyond what a team of Genin could manage. I hope you understand that this altercation will bump the ranking of the mission to B rank due to a confrontation with opponents of roughly Chunin level." The silver haired man explained. The client nodded, still taken aback by the display of brutality from both the adult opponents and the preteens that had dispatched them. "Sasuke, Sakura, remain here and accompany the client. I will be right back, with our missing teammate."

Sasuke opened his mouth to protest, only to notice Sakura beat him to the punch. "B-But, Sensei!" The Uchiha's composure already being on the verge of breaking, and thus him being far more aware of any breaches to usual Uchiha etiquette, was the only thing that kept him from openly commending the girl on, at least for the moment, thinking more about her teammate in peril than her own crisis.

"No buts. You're probably still reeling from the battle. Sasuke will keep your company. Don't worry, guys, I'm an elite Jounin. There are very few people in the elemental lands I'm not confident I can kill and I used to be part of the ANBU Hunter Nin Corps." He assured his team, turning back to the direction the man had run in and, taking a deep breath, began running, leaving behind himself a cloud of dust as he did.

Sasuke cursed. This mission had gone to hell in the worst way possible. They were wordless, emotionally and physically exhausted by their first real confrontation, as they boarded the wagon the client used for his trade. The man sent the girl a concerned look and urged his beasts of burden forward. No sense remaining rooted, and the silver haired man did say he was a tracking expert.

Not to mention, following the road would've been pathetically easy for even genin level ninja.

Sakura was beginning to get pale. "I… I…" She mumbled, rocking back and forth in her seated position. Tears were leaking out from her eyes. Her brain had finally caught up with what she'd done, what she'd been forced to do to protect her teammates. Sasuke felt a wave of nostalgia hit him.

He'd only seen someone else in that state, and it hurt him deeply to know that not only had he allowed it to happen again, Sakura had been forced to kill, to deliver a fatal blow, to protect HIM. He should have been protecting her! He should have been better! Stronger, faster, harder… he should have been capable of defending his teammates!

What good was a police captain who couldn't even keep a full team through his first mission? He had been implicitly given field command of Team 7 if Kakashi wasn't there. Neither of his teammates had objected. They'd trusted him with the task and he'd disappointed them!

And worst of all, now he was even failing to deal with Sakura's stress. Deciding to forego any and all etiquette and banking on the experience he'd earned when he'd dealt with someone else's post-stress trauma, he wrapped his arms around Sakura's shoulders and pulled her close to his chest.

The tears flowed freely, staining his shirt. He didn't care. "I killed that man… I saw him about to kill you so I…"

"It's okay, Sakura… you did what you had to do…" He said, rubbing her back, enduring her sob ridden speech. He bit his lower lip as she let out a particularly loud chain of sobs and seemed to relax the slightest bit. "You're a true Shinobi… Remember that…"

"But… I can't… I can't even keep my lunch down after my first kill…" She mumbled almost incoherently, forcing Sasuke to decipher what she'd meant and coming up with what he suspected was close to what she'd meant.

Sasuke sighed. "Sakura… My brother… you know who he is, right? The youngest ANBU captain ever, candidate to Hokage, Uchiha Itachi… You know him. Tall, emo and girly."

This drew a soft chuckle from the pink haired girl who was still trembling in his arms. To see such an honorable and dignified figure and posture as Itachi's described as 'Tall, emo and girly' was the least she'd expected to hear as comforting words.

"He once told me that someone who does not feel anything when they kill is not a true Shinobi… that someone with no heart was simply a mindless weapon." She knew the term. She was the best at theory, and the academy had briefly gone over the kinds of opponents one could face and the diplomacy that should be applied when dealing with them.

"But… A ninja is supposed to show no emotion… Ninjas don't cry… I'm breaking the rules… " She looked up at him, her wide green eyes making Sasuke feel another sting of guilt over his inability to prevent this from happening.

"The rules are bullshit." Sasuke said, seeing that Sakura had mostly calmed down and simply laid in his arms, most likely even more exhausted from her ordeal than he was from his. "Don't think less of yourself for crying, Sakura… Everyone cries when they are sufficiently upset."

"Even someone… like Hokage-sama?"

Sasuke nodded, seeing the tiny bit of hope in her eyes.

"What about you?" she asked, catching Sasuke by surprise.

"I… I guess…" He said, smiling. "But then again… you guys don't give me a lot of reasons to cry about, you know?" He said, stroking her hair gently.

Sakura smiled, and finally allowed herself to drift off.

"I've gotta hand it to ya, kid." The merchant said, looking over his shoulder at Sasuke, who now had the pinkette snuggling against his side. "For what it's worth… I agree with you. It takes a special kind of strength to allow yourself to cry and that strength… that's the kind of strength you can only get from your bonds with your friends." The man said, adjusting his large straw hat so that it properly blocked the sun. "Never forget it."

Sasuke found himself absent mindedly nodding.

"Knock yourself out f'r a while. It'll prolly do ya good." The man continued in a strangely good natured voice. It seemed the man had gained some measure of respect for his Shinobi if he was willing to actually speak to him like that. Sasuke smiled, letting Sakura snuggle closer to him. "I'll wake you up if anything important comes up. Don't think nobody else'll have the balls to jump us, though…"

* * *

"Sasuke…"

"Ungh… five more minutes…"

"Sasuke… Up…"

"I'll… be… right up…"

Sasuke's eyes snapped open, however, as he felt a rather cold breeze chill his body, only to find himself on the back of the wagon, with an annoyed looking Sakura staring him right in the eye. "You know how hard it is to wake you up? I've been trying to wake you up for the last ten minutes!" She said, annoyance barely hidden in her tone.

"Wha…" Sasuke mumbled, rubbing his head. "What… did something happened?"

Sakura pointedly ignored his messed up words. Probably still processing the fact he woke up to begin with. "Sensei… found Uzumaki-san…" She said, looking very sad as she did. "He's… badly wounded, but he's not letting sensei patch him up."

Sasuke groggily stood up and mumbled a curse under his breath. The cover of night had fallen and they'd camped for the night.

"We let you sleep because you'll be taking guard. You'll sleep in the wagon during the morning." Sakura stated, answering the unasked question. "You'd be more alert during the night like this and after what happened… well, we aren't risking it. We don't know who attacked us, since they weren't wearing headbands and they didn't do anything that could identify them…"

Sasuke sighed and then jumped off the wagon, landing on the ground with a thud. His eyes scanned the road and much to his chagrin he found what he was looking for not too far away from where he was standing right now. Two, maybe three, meters away sat Uzumaki Naruto, blood freely flowing from a multitude of wounds in his body. The boy had wrapped his own arms in thick bandages that were already being tinted red, but the ones that had been torn around his back remained untouched.

The Uchiha directed a glance towards where his jounin teacher had joined the client next to a small fire and a pot cooking over it. The silver haired man nodded and then gestured towards Uzumaki. It was easy to guess why. Uzumaki trusted him the most out of team 7 and they'd been friends for years now, so he had the best chance of getting through to him.

Though it made him wonder… why exactly hadn't the jounin already done the deed himself? Had Uzumaki refused to be tended to by the man? It… seemed surprisingly likely. For all of his toughness, the blond had a huge problem with taking care of himself or allowing others to take care of him. The one exception being, of course, the unofficial leader of Team 7.

Sasuke walked up to him and then sat down next to the blond. "We should bandage your wounds… you could bleed out."

Uzumaki shook his head. Sasuke had to admit something was odd about the whole thing. Uzumaki was incredibly tough, yes, but humans had their limits. You could only lose so much blood before your life was threatened, and he should have lost consciousness long ago, if Sasuke's calculations were correct.

Yet here he was, impossibly alert and awake even though he should be feeling tired already, if not from the lack of blood then at least from the physical and emotional exhaustion. Sasuke had decided that he had to find out why exactly Uzumaki didn't want to be patched up. "Why don't you let us help you?"

Uzumaki blinked. The first time Sasuke had seen him surprised by anything in a very long time. Sasuke had played the part of the nurse for Uzumaki several times in the past, as the blond had a tendency to go way overboard during training. Maybe Uzumaki didn't trust him, even after all that time?

Sasuke sighed. "Let me help you. That has to be painful, and the blood loss must be bothering you a lot. We have to take off and change the bandages or you'll get a nasty infection." It was hard, trying to get that information through to someone who Sasuke was certain had at one point pounded his own fists into paste against a wooden post.

Probably more than once even.

Sasuke began to rack his head, trying to find out a possible cause for why Uzumaki did not want them to change his bandages. Maybe… maybe he was simply self conscious? It… it was a possibility. "I promise that I won't let Sakura or Kakashi watch."

Uzumaki stared at the floor for a full ten seconds, seemingly debating what to do. The boy had only removed the orange jacket, showing the white shirt that was now more red than white, to change the bandages on his arms. The blond nodded, a short, timid nod, towards Sasuke.

Sasuke looked around and noticed that not too far away, the others had set up their tents. So, with a sigh, he helped Uzumaki to his feet and lead him into the tent. Then he turned to the others and shrugged.

However, he only received nods from Kakashi, Sakura and the client. Then he followed Uzumaki into the tent and almost instantly noticed that the light of the fire just barely managed to allow him to see Uzumaki sitting in front of him. The tent was designed for one person, so the two were a bit cramped inside.

With deliberately slow and unintentionally teasing movements, Uzumaki removed his abused white shirt and revealed the blood coated bandages and a jagged red line that was still flowing with blood.

Sasuke's hand went for the bandages, grabbing them from the top of his back and slowly dragged his hands down, lifting the bandages that had clung to Uzumaki's skin through the blood that soaked them. He saw Uzumaki stiffen as his hands touched the last few bandages. Once they were all loose, he carefully pulled them off.

Some of the bandages had managed to avoid the strange blade's curved blade and were still tightly secured against Uzumaki's shoulders and upper chest. Every one of them on his lower back was at a loss, though.

Sasuke gasped, seeing the collection of scars on Uzumaki's lower back. Well… that was a reason why he would be self conscious. Perhaps he didn't want the pity he'd certainly get if his teammates saw his body? Regardless, Sasuke still smiled. Uzumaki had trusted him and him alone with replacing the bandages that he couldn't replace himself.

The Uchiha went about cleaning the wound, reaching for a canteen that he'd conveniently found inside the tent and a piece of cloth he'd ripped from the white shirt. The part that wasn't already bloodied, anyway.

He heard that incredibly soft gasp as the cloth touched the area close to the wound. It seemed Uzumaki was in quite a bit of pain since he very rarely voiced it. Sasuke frowned, but continued with his task. The wound was shallow enough that it most likely wouldn't require stitches. It hadn't reached the spine. Sakura's move had probably saved Uzumaki from being a cripple.

Once the wound was clean, he set about bandaging it, accepting a roll of pristine white bandages from Uzumaki. Curiously enough, the wound had stopped bleeding despite appearing to be quite open.

Even so… without the bulky clothing gone, Uzumaki looked positively minuscule. The little boy was small and while his unnatural toughness often distracted one from it, now… now that he was here, exposed, he didn't look like a trained killer. He looked like a fragile little boy who had seen far too many things in his lifetime. A boy who'd lived through far too many things he should not.

Even the scars didn't detract from this fact.

The few times that Sasuke's hands made contact with Uzumaki's naked skin, he was forced to stop his mind from wandering off. There was no way that a ninja should have such ridiculously soft skin. The fact that, unlike his face and hands which were a healthy tan, his back was pale and obviously lacking proper exposure to the sun.

The Uchiha mentally frowned at how the red quickly stained the bandages when they made contact with the open, if shallow, wounds that littered Uzumaki's small torso.

Then he remembered something odd. Hadn't Uzumaki been pierced through? He had. He remembered that. So… why was that wound shallow like every other one? That should have required urgent medical attention. Yet… it seemed fine.

Maybe he'd imagined it, but nevertheless, Sasuke filed it in the back of his mind.

In his concentration, Sasuke missed how Uzumaki shivered every time Sasuke's rough, calloused fingers touched his skin.

Uzumaki stiffened once more when Sasuke applied pressure to the bandages, relaxing finally when Sasuke finished and tied them. "Your shirt and jacket are a loss, though." Sasuke sounded actually apologetic about said fact. "You should also replace your pants as soon as possible. But… I bet you want to keep those.

The blond nodded. And… maybe it was the lighting. Yeah, it had to be the lighting. There was absolutely no way that Uzumaki had just blushed. The guy didn't blush, ever. "Okay, Uzumaki… we're all done."

Sasuke turned and reached for the flap that separated the tent from the outside world, but then there was a hand stopping him from opening it. The hand belonged to an arm clad in bandages. "Naruto." He heard in a soft voice barely above a whisper. "Call me… Naruto…"

Sasuke was taken aback.

To most, the gesture would be completely meaningless. In fact, even Sasuke himself put little weight in the tradition of calling someone by their surname unless they gave you permission to use their first names. Sure, it was a sign of respect, but it was also a sign of distance and most people, these days, did not want to remain always distant of their comrades.

These days, it had become more a gesture of distance than of respect, but Sasuke, who knew its true purpose, had always meant it as a display of the respect he felt towards Naruto. To show, in a little way that most would not have caught, that he had always, on some level, admired the boy who trained until his fists bled and he couldn't lift his feet.

He referred to Umino Iruka, the one teacher who had ever treated him like he would any other student, the same way. Then again, before he'd come to respect Kakashi as a teacher, he'd referred to him by his surname.

Maybe there wasn't the same distance that was between him and Uzumaki and that was why he had no trouble using the first names of his teammates. It had been… easier, to relate to them. Sakura had wormed her way into his heart, as a friend, very easily after she'd stopped trying to 'steal it', as fangirls were wont to and conversation with her always came easy.

Surprisingly, despite his lack of respect for Kakashi, he had never truly hated or disliked him. Sure, he might have been incompetent but the man's antics were at times absolutely hilarious and despite never interfering with their training, the lessons that the man had taught them were still fresh in their minds.

There had never been such ease in his relationship with the blond boy who even now looked frail and hesitant. Who, for the first time since Sasuke had known him, looked to be at a loss on what to do, desperate for an answer after taking what he must no doubt have considered a huge step.

There had always been a gulf between them. They were friends, yes, but there was always something that separated them. A distance that neither was willing to cross. Uzumaki… no, Naruto had never willingly spoken to him and he had always called him with a respectful

"Okay… Naruto." He said, tentatively. It rolled off his tongue quite nicely.

The blond let go of his arm and nodded.

"You should rest. You should be tired by now…" Sasuke said.

Uzumaki shook his head and tried to stand up.

At that point, Sasuke didn't know what exactly had possessed him to do what he did, but the fact is, he still did it. Without thinking, he brought one of his hands forward, right in front of Uzumaki's forehead and, without a doubt, poked him in the forehead. "Go to sleep." He ordered, an odd smile on his face.

As Naruto was left dumbfounded blinking and at a complete loss of what to do, Sasuke moved out of the tent, moving to where the rest of the team and the client had gathered together to eat. He sat down on a piece of raised dirt that Kakashi had raised with an earth technique.

He sighed, letting his tension flow.

"Complicated patient I take it." The masked ninja began, offering Sasuke a bowl of soup which the Uchiha accepted graciously. "How's he doing?"

"He's… fine, I guess." Said the Uchiha, though he didn't sound very convinced about it. "Just… don't punch him and he'll be fine."

Kakashi chuckled, but Sakura actually took his advice seriously and nodded obediently. "Sasuke… did you learn why Uzumaki-san doesn't want to show us his body?" The silver haired teacher questioned.

"Yes." Sasuke said. "But he will tell you when he wants to."

Kakashi looked bored at that. "I could just order you to give up the information." He said.

"But you wouldn't." The Uchiha said.

"Right." Kakashi said, shrugging.

"I… I think Uzumaki-san might be hungry, so…" Sakura said, looking intently at the still warm soup. "Should I bring him something to eat?" She actually looked at Sasuke when she asked that.

Sasuke nodded. "Do let him rest if he's sleeping, though…"

* * *

"Well, guys, it's been a pleasure to ride with you but this is where our paths diverge." The client said. "If I ever have to hire an escort again, I'll remember to ask for Team Kakashi." He said, waving his large straw hat in the air, offering them a cheerful grin.

It had taken them two weeks to complete the mission, and the payment slip for the B ranked mission was signed upon arriving at the capital.

Deciding that they wanted to get to Konoha desperately, Team 7 rushed back, although Naruto seemed discontent with the fact that he had been forced to ride on Kakashi's back, since there was no telling whether or not his wounds would reopen, as they hadn't been stitched properly and, despite being relatively shallow wounds, they were still numerous and big so Kakashi would rather not risk it. He was already taking a big risk by going through the quick route (namely, going through the trees of the massive forests that surrounded Konoha on all sides) instead of taking the slow road that twisted through the forest.

Sasuke was completely okay with the decision and so was Sakura. Both were quite shaken by the experiences they'd gone through in the mission and wanted to get back to Konoha ASAP.

What irked the genin more than anything else was the fact that Kakashi was incredibly tight lipped when it came to how he'd recovered Naruto. Sasuke was dying to know what exactly that ninja had done to the small blond that clung to Kakashi's back. He had to content himself to know that Kakashi had not given him a quick and painless death.

Or at the very least, he hoped that Kakashi had not been quick.

As they were rushing through the trees, he saw Naruto turn around to face him as his thoughts on the men he'd met in this mission, whose actions had seemed to be simply a random act of violence, possibly rogue ninja attempting to ambush and murder a genin team to get whatever they were guarding seemed to come to the forefront again.

His helplessness when he'd been incapable of defeating them and the anger and hatred he had felt when the ninjutsu expert had just up and taken Naruto… it made Sasuke's blood boil.

Naruto pointed at his own eyes, then at Sasuke… and then he noticed that the world was flowing much more smoothly than it ever seemed to. Usually, when he leaped through the woods at speeds like this, everything would blur together but now… now everything seemed so clearly defined, so… vibrant… that it surprised him.

"Sharingan…" Sasuke muttered. Only then did he feel that there was a drain of chakra going towards his eyes. With an instant of effort, he closed it off, not even losing his feet, though it made the next leap an instant slower as he adjusted to the changed sight. Sakura looked at him with concern in her face for a moment, but he shook his head and continued racing forward.

So that was it, then? His father had said that a life threatening situation first unlocks the Sharingan, and from then on, everyone has a different way of triggering it. Was his anger and hatred?

It couldn't be. He refused to believe he would have to turn into a rage and hate-filled individual just to use his sharingan willingly. What was it, then? He had been thinking about the man who had taken Naruto when he activated the sharingan. He'd been enraged, yes, but… that wasn't what he'd been focusing on.

What he'd been focusing on was on his teammates. He had been focusing on the fact that he'd failed them and his determination to never fail them again. Simply being angry couldn't be the answer. He'd been angry, thoroughly pissed, before. He'd been angry when he'd learned what his brother was suffering through. He'd been angry when he'd learned what Naruto put up with every day. He'd been angry before.

So that wasn't the answer.

Was it… perhaps helplessness? Was it the despair and fear that he felt when he remembered just how utterly useless he was? The Sharingan was a natural defense that sped up the mind's perception and made many defensive maneuvers instinctual and automatic. In a sense, it was more of a shield than a weapon, as it proved by activating in a near death situation.

It might have been a rather… poor moment to choose to begin to ponder the nature of the Sharingan, but Sasuke couldn't bring himself to think of anything else.

He kept his head clear and alert and distracted his mind with thoughts of something that was in the end inconsequential and even if it weren't, it wouldn't affect him during the near future. He knew that if he let his mind wander, it'd just return to the same moment again and again.

To the moment where he'd had to hold the Kunoichi who'd cracked to pieces after her first kill.

To the moment where he almost crashed into a hundred pieces after failing to protect his teammates, after failing at being a leader and disappointing everyone around him.

This… this mission was a lesson. Maybe there was, in fact, a god watching out for him that made sure that Sasuke's humbling had not cost his teammates their lives. He'd always thought that he wasn't as arrogant as the members of his extended family tended to become upon unlocking the Sharingan.

Powerful weapon though it might be, it did not elevate its user and granted no leadership abilities. Being an Uchiha, alone, was not a cause to name one for leadership. Uchiha Itachi had earned the position of Hokage Candidate because he had lead his ANBU squad fairly and efficiently for years before retiring from ANBU to become a regular Elite Jounin.

Come to think of it… the ninja right in front of Sasuke was a team leader. When he took command, he had made the right call and so far, he'd somehow managed to make his team follow him willingly (despite being technically forced to follow him, Team 7 followed Kakashi's commands of their own free will, despite any (legitimate) complaints about his being a terrible teacher).

He'd have to ask Kakashi for tutoring on how to be an effective leader of a three man cell instead of the more general leadership that Fugaku had taught him. After all, Fugaku hadn't intended for Sasuke to become a field leader, but rather he'd intended for Sasuke to become the head of the police force in its entirety, and while his lessons proved useful at times, some could not be applied to Team 7's dynamics.

After all, Fugaku assumed Sasuke would work with people who weren't willing to give it their all and to follow his every command.

Heck, during the battle he had failed to give any commands at all and they'd fought in a disorganized manner.

Upon noticing that one of his students could not bring himself out of his funk, Kakashi sighed and turned his head around, making a show of the fact he didn't even need to look as he leaped forward. "Sasuke. Don't worry. This was the very first time you guys entered real combat. And believe me, I've seen worse." The silver haired Shinobi began, slowing down slightly so they'd have an easier time engaging in conversation.

"But… I-"

"All three of you knew what to do. Blondie and you engaged the enemy in close range combat and Sakura provided support. It's not a very complicated tactic, but it's one you fell in without needing to speak a word amongst yourselves and, while it might not seem like it, you fought like a team ought to, covering each other's backs." The jounin explained, giving one of those weird eye-smiles of his that always seemed to somehow make everything seem better. "If it makes you feel better… The first mission under my command during the war went much worse than this one… "

There was that odd, nostalgic quality on his voice that reminded Sasuke of Itachi's. It made him think about the fact that Kakashi probably had as many ugly stories about the war as his father did. He had fought in it from a very young age, probably hadn't been more than a genin thrust into the battlefield, even.

A simple grunt.

Wait. A grunt would not have been given command during a mission. He'd have to have been at least a chunin, and even then, a chunin would not lead an important mission. Hatake couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen back then.

Could it be possible..?

Nah, there was no way someone was a jounin by age thirteen. Even his brother had been only a chunin, despite being ANBU captain. He had been Captain more because of his strategic and logical mind rather than because of his combat abilities, after all. Jounin in general are the upper class in terms of brains and brawn.

There was no way that a thirteen year old boy, even during the war, could have been a jounin.

Regardless, Sasuke nodded at his sensei. The man no doubt had far more experience than he gave him credit for, and so Sasuke decided to trust his judgment on the matter. He would later discuss the mission with his brother and learn what he had done wrong and how he could do better next time. There was absolutely no way he'd repeat his mistakes.

Plus, he needed to train in the use of the Sharingan. It might be a crutch, but it was an incredibly useful one that even Itachi used extensively. The only reason Sasuke didn't call him a hypocrite was because while Itachi might use his Sharingan, it's very clear that he can go without it and he only pulled it out when it was necessary. It just so happened to be that taking S ranked missions was the kind of situation where nothing could be held back.

Sasuke nodded to himself.

Meanwhile, while jumping ahead, Kakashi nodded to himself, looking back at Sasuke and Sakura, slightly disturbing Naruto, who nevertheless returned to the oddly relaxed state he seemed to be in. Kakashi smiled under his mask as the blond snuggled against his back.

Oh, the memories. Now, however, was not the time for a flashback...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations come one at a time, and this is just one of many.

Kakashi had made the report not too long ago, and Sasuke had many things to speak to him about. Not the least of which was his concerns about his leadership abilities. Itachi would be back in three days, according to his mother, and then he could simply ask Itachi for help in leading a squad directly, if Kakashi proved insufficient.

Right now, that was the least pressing concern. "Sensei."

Kakashi actually stopped cold in his tracks and turned around to eye-smile at Sasuke. The Uchiha knew that the jounin had always known he was there, otherwise he would have probably reacted in a more extreme manner. "I… have a question."

"If it's about your budding attraction towards your teammates, don't worry, it's natu-"

Sasuke looked completely deadpan, folding his arms over his chest.

"So it's not about that, huh?" The silver haired Shinobi said, sighing. "Well, I'm listening."

Sasuke shook his head however. "I think we should take this somewhere more… private."

Kakashi frowned internally, but nodded nonetheless. "Well, I know one or two bars that cater to Shinobi wanting privacy." He said. "People will look at us weird though since… well, what would an adult do alone in a closed off space to his cute little genin student? The rumors will be all the rage!"

Sasuke slapped his forehead rather violently, wishing that his teacher was only trying to lighten the situation. If he really was concerned more about the rumors popping up than what Sasuke had to say, it could mean one of two things.

Either he wasn't concerned at all that Sasuke might ask a hard question or he had no intentions to answer any questions at all. With Hatake Kakashi, it tended to be the latter more than the former.

* * *

The place was quiet, dark and rather… how to put it? Well, to put it in the simplest terms I can think of, it felt like walking into a brothel without the sexy. It just had the atmosphere of discreteness that these places often boasted.

They'd had to pay for a room and the waitress who'd served them had tossed more than one odd look, both in Kakashi and in Sasuke's own direction. Kakashi seemed mildly embarrassed by it, but Sasuke himself didn't understand why. They were teacher and student and while that might not have been obvious, why else would…

Oh.

Shinobi probably used places like this to have secret relationships. After all, any and all relationships could be weaponized by the enemy and it only took a stray gossiper for someone to learn about your newest girlfriend whom you don't want to know.

It made sense to think they'd want a place that catered specifically to Shinobi to deal with that problem promptly.

Luckily, the odd looks had stopped when Kakashi had actually booked a room in the restaurant portion of the Shinobi-brothel-place. It seemed that the waitress had then decided to start sending another kind of odd look towards Kakashi. Apparently, he was popular with the ladies despite not showing his face at all.

Or maybe because of it. After all, his fangirls often chanted about his mysteriousness.

"Okay… They will bring us the ingredients soon, then we'll cook our own food. It's a security measure so we know they haven't poisoned our food." Kakashi said conversationally.

"What stops them from poisoning the ingredients? Or replacing the spices with powdered poisons? Or the sauce with liquid poison?" Sasuke stated.

"It's force of habit." Kakashi said, shrugging. "I just prefer cooking my own food. Keeps the one skill I never mastered sharp." He added, sitting down on the mat next to the table, cross legged. "So… take a seat."

Sasuke did as commanded and took a deep breath.

"What do you want to know?" The silver haired Shinobi asked. "Don't worry, there's nobody listening in and the walls are soundproof, so if you want to confess your undeniable lust towards your teammates, it's now or never."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Sasuke asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Well… When I got back to the caravan, you and Sakura were getting pretty intimate, and you hang out with Naruto a lot…" The jounin said, his tone light and teasing.

"Sakura is my friend, dammit! I just got through breaking her out of her childish crush on me, I'm not gonna turn around and stomp over all that progress by reversing the situation!" The Uchiha said, blushing bright red as he did.

"You're not denying you're close to Naruto…" It seemed that Kakashi had taken control of the conversation with a few comments. However, Sasuke was too infuriated at that moment to care.

"I don't swing that way!" Sasuke said, raising his voice. He didn't care if people would hear him. He hadn't heard anything when he was being led to this room so chances are nobody could hear him here anyway.

"Sasuke, there's nothing wrong with liking the same gender. In fact, it's very common amongst ninja to seek comfort in their teammates regardless of gender!" Kakashi lectured in a matter of fact tone that had Sasuke palming his forehead and wanting to Goukakyuu Kakashi's face right now.

"I don't-"

"And I don't think anyone can blame you. After all, you are a growing boy and your teammates are both splendid examples of the opposite gender… or will grow up to be, anyway. In fact, you should be proud because I'm sure that neither of them will have problems with the arrangement!"

"We're twelve!" Sasuke nearly shrieked, his face making a very accurate imitation of what a Jack O Lantern would look like if it were made with a giant tomato.

"Sasuke, the moment you put your headband on your childhood ended. From that moment onward, you have been an adult. There is no walking or talking around it. You can kill, drink and have sex. You could walk into the red light district and nobody would bat an eyelash as long as your headband is in display." The silver haired Shinobi stated, this time growing serious. "Civilians might balk at this practice, but it's how it's always been and how it will always be."

Sasuke was actually taken aback by the lecture. He hadn't ever expected his sensei to actually grow serious in his explanation, much less that he'd turn his teasing into a lecture that actually made quite a bit of sense when he thought it through. He had wondered why exactly a place like this would just let him enter with no problem.

The waitress was most likely a civilian, which explained her reaction when Kakashi had walked in with Sasuke. It wasn't one of disgust from being shocked by something so unlikely, it was disgust born from having to witness something she found despicable many times and what he'd seen on her face when Kakashi had booked this room… It must have been relief.

To a civilian, a twelve year old boy was a child. Children were always seen as something to be protected by most cultures and rape was probably universally one of the worst seen crimes across the elemental nations. The idea that someone might rape a child probably brought disgust to just about anyone, psychopaths notwithstanding.

But ninja… Sasuke knew that ANBU had the Seduction corps. A ninja's body is the ultimate weapon and seduction is simply another form of combat. People with special talents were whisked away to the other divisions rather than the general forces. If that special talent lied within the realm of seduction, you'd join the corps.

Regardless of age.

He shook his head and cleared his thoughts. Kakashi was distracting him with his antics from the real reason why he wanted to talk with the man in private. "Stop changing the subject." The Uchiha commanded with a tone of finality that told the jounin that playtime was over.

Or at least, Sasuke hoped that the man would understand that much. "Okay, then… what do you want to know, Sasuke?" Kakashi said.

"What, exactly, is Uzumaki Naruto?"

Kakashi blinked his one visible eye several times.

The question had caught him off guard, it seemed, which made Sasuke reason that Kakashi had not expected to answer any questions. Sasuke's determination in getting the answer to this question, however, would not be felled.

Uzumaki Naruto was an enigma wrapped in mysteries. Whatever the hell he was, it was most decidedly something more than a simple human. He didn't know of any bloodlines that involved regeneration, not to the extent Uzumaki had regenerated (in a couple hours, a knife wound that had completely pierced his torso was nothing more than a shallow wound that was closer to a slash wound than a stab one). If there had been, it'd most likely be incredibly famous.

Anyone who could survive lethal and crippling wounds as easily as Naruto could and did would become famous, if only because they'd be incredibly hard to kill. Famously hard to kill, at least, and if it was an entire bloodline…

Kakashi sighed. "I guess the day would come when you'd ask. I assume I can't get away from this one by claiming it's a bloodline, then?" The teacher tried.

Sasuke shook his head somberly. "And you just confirmed that you know something." The Uchiha added, falling to silence for a few moments.

A set of knocks, two, followed by three followed by two, and Kakashi had opened the door to allow the waitress, now carrying a flirty smile aimed to the elder ninja as well as a tray with all the ingredients that Kakashi had asked for as well as the utensils necessary to cook them. Sasuke frowned at the sight.

The woman left after whispering something in Kakashi's ear, which he replied to with one of his enigmatic eye-smiles (it's odd how expressive a single eye can be) and they both saw the waitress depart, Sasuke finding himself following the hypnotic movements of her hips. He hadn't paid attention the last time, but the skirt of the uniform the waitress wore was surprisingly short…

Just went to further demonstrate the oddness of the place, he imagined. Regardless, he turned back to Kakashi. "Genjutsu are useless against a Sharingan, you know." Sasuke said, flashing his eyes at the silver haired Shinobi, grabbing a cup of tea from the tray and taking a sip.

"It was worth a try." Kakashi said, shrugging.

"Which means that hiding whatever information you have is important." Sasuke said. Kakashi was making no attempt at disguising said fact, most likely in an attempt to discourage Sasuke from further seeking the truth. Uncomfortable though the man might be, Sasuke needed the truth. He needed to know why…

This could be the piece that would finally make the puzzle click. Given the way most people looked at Uzumaki, it had to be something that made the civilians avoid him like the plague.

"I don't even have authorization to tell you." Kakashi said. "The very existence of S rank secrets is a secret in itself. I could be punished for revealing that much, you know." The man said, as his hands skillfully began to separate the ingredients into smaller portions, which he then began to gather.

Sasuke stopped paying attention to the movement of his hands. He was, in fact, learning a lot from Kakashi through such a simple conversation. Every movement Kakashi made while preparing his food was filled with unnecessary movements that drew the eye. The waving of the silver colored knife reflected the light and forced Sasuke to focus on it, from the instinct born of a decade of watching out for sharp objects since he got his first kunai.

"You're getting better." Kakashi informed, catching on to the fact that Sasuke was aware of the distraction tactics.

"What I find odd is that you're turning this into a lesson when you haven't taught us anything so far." Sasuke stated, calmly sipping his tea.

Kakashi smirked under his mask. "Do I even have a need to, Sasuke? You three… are the best team I could possibly have asked for. You help each other progress. You work together to achieve a common goal. You have what your clan has taught you and you share it with your teammates. To be quite frank, I don't think I'm as good a teacher as you are." The jounin freely admitted. "After all, I was at a loss on what to do to break Sakura out of the fangirl complex and you went and did it in a single morning."

Sasuke smiled at the praise, but nonetheless continued to focus and maintain his mind in the game.

"I will take whichever chances I get to teach you something you guys can't teach each other. You're all just about ready to begin training for the Chunin exams, so…"

This caused Sasuke to raise an eyebrow. But he did not ask further. He knew what the man was doing. Dangling an important piece of information that was ultimately harmless so that Sasuke pounced on it and stopped caring about his original question. Were he to be quite frank, he'd have told Kakashi to go fuck himself but before that he should answer the goddamn question.

So far, all he knew was that it was an S rank secret which, admittedly, explained why the man was hesitant to just tell Sasuke about it. He had also said that he didn't have the authorization to tell anyone about it. The Hokage most likely had the reason, but Sasuke would not be capable of prying the information from the Hokage, who would question why he knew it was an S rank secret at all and why he knew that there was something odd about Naruto beyond being, well, Naruto.

This would lead him to Kakashi who would most likely be punished along with Team 7… Which made it a no go.

Sasuke hummed in thought and decided to bite the bait that the jounin was dangling in front of him, because even if he was more interested in the secret, for the moment it was clear that Kakashi was unwilling to share it. "Chunin exams?" he asked, after a few moments of doubt. "You're signing us up."

It didn't take long for Kakashi to nod. "You guys are pretty much ready to take them, at the very least. I don't know if you'd all get promoted but I have faith that you'd at the very least get to the finals and obtain valuable experience." He explained, already knowing that Sasuke would ask for an explanation why he'd sign them up. "We have… just about five months to prepare for the chunin exams. If I have my way, by that point you will be put into the exam as ringers, rather than as participants, with pretty much guaranteed promotions."

"Ringers?" Sasuke asked, now well and truly curious.

"Genin teams that are far above the average level of the competition and are more a display of a village's power than a chance for them to earn experience." Kakashi said, sounding again as conversational as ever.

"Rookie teams entering the exams are rare." Sasuke stated, accepting the plate that Kakashi offered him and placing it in front of himself, grabbing the chopsticks and preparing to eat.

"Rookie teams that take their first C rank on their first week as a team are unique. You know how many times that has happened?" Asked Kakashi, raising his visible eyebrow and taking a piece of food between his chopsticks. "Just once." He said.

Sasuke looked down towards his plate and grabbed a piece of meat of god knows what animal and took it into his mouth. When he directed his eyes at Kakashi again, the man's chopsticks were empty again, though his plate was missing a few items that it'd had before. He forced back the need to laugh at the sight of his teacher wiping his goddamn mask.

"You guys are going to parade Konoha's strength in front of every important noble amongst our allies so I'll train you all hard. This doesn't mean that we'll stop taking missions, of course, but we're mostly gonna stop taking D ranks since they're pointless as a team building exercise." Kakashi admitted, scratching the back of his neck absent mindedly.

Sasuke raised one eyebrow. "You don't sound happy about that."

"I'm not. Watching you guys suffer taking a D Rank is one of my favorite pastimes." The jounin rather shamelessly admitted, giving Sasuke an eye smile.

Sasuke was left to glare at him impotently, for being a jackass, while the man made it a point to show how unthreatened he was. Sasuke's eyes were, once again driven towards his food as he continued to eat Kakashi's surprisingly half-way decent cuisine. Again, Kakashi was wiping his mask when he turned his eyes back up

The Uchiha wanted to question Kakashi further, but he didn't know how. How could he managed to word his question in a way that, while seriously bending, wouldn't break the spirit of the rule he was given? Perhaps… Perhaps there was something he could use as a thinly veiled attempt. "Do either Sakura or Naruto know we're being signed for the Chunin exams?"

"I haven't had the time to talk with them, but I'm sure Naruto knows, at least." Kakashi said, offering Sasuke an eye smile. So Kakashi was playing that game. Careful, wasn't he? A bit unnecessary, but then again, Kakashi had turned this whole thing into a lesson in the many ways in which one can dominate a conversation without the other party even knowing and that, at least, Sasuke could see clearly.

A lesson in subtlety probably wasn't something far off from what the man who Sasuke was starting to respect more and more as a teacher, though he still was a ways off from getting anywhere near the same respect the academy teachers got, probably intended to leave with him. "I guess I'd have to relay the information to them, then?"

Kakashi nodded, taking a moment to sigh and take a deep breath. "Keep an open mind, Sasuke. I don't think that he'd tell you even if he wanted to. You know how he is with words."

"Yet he talked when you ordered him to…" Sasuke was purposefully leaving out the fact that Naruto had willingly talked to him before, although only once and he hadn't repeated the feat ever since.

"He's an obedient, cute little genin, isn't he?" Kakashi said, offering an eye smile.

Again, this was probably Kakashi's cue for him to think of something deeper. A hint. Naruto followed orders without fail, Sasuke had never seen him outright refuse an order from an authority figure. He had seen him ignore the existence of people before, but never gone against an order or willingly broke a rule.

Sasuke frowned at this bit of information. Before, Uzumaki Naruto had earned his interest due to the mysteries surrounding him everywhere but… Sasuke had begun to loathe the web of secrets that surrounded his teammate. He had begun to hate the fact that an innocent boy was surrounded in secrets that he most likely couldn't tell him about.

He hated the fact that it was likely that Naruto had already been involved in whatever it was that the S rank secret entailed since before Sasuke met him. And it was probably the only thing bad enough to cause him to turn into what he had been when Sasuke had first met him and, to a degree, still was.

Kakashi left the money to pay for the meal and the service, such as it was, and got up to leave.

"… If anyone has a chance of prying anything from that boy… it's you, Sasuke." Kakashi said, as they parted ways outside the rather discrete appearing restaurant front. Sasuke was certain that, hadn't Kakashi told him, he'd never have guessed the true purpose of this place.

The jounin placed a hand on his shoulder, causing Sasuke to stop just before he rushed off. He could not gain the information he sought from Kakashi, but he'd gained the confirmation that Naruto knew. He had wanted to go meet with Naruto ASAP. Sasuke looked up at the man questioningly, but Kakashi merely focused his eye on him for a full second. There was a weird emotion in the jounin's eye, and Sasuke wasn't certain that he could quite place it.

Without saying a word, Kakashi sighed and let him go.

This action just further confused Sasuke. He looked like he'd wanted to say something right then but had to hold it up for some reason. Regardless, Sasuke took to the rooftops. It was a common sight in Konoha to see Ninja taking the quick route rather than go amongst the civilians. It also saved the civilians trouble, Shinobi in a hurry were something quite bothersome to wandering merchants.

The fan on the back of his shirt brought Sasuke safe passage from the police patrols running around. The only member of the Uchiha clan to wear that exact same shirt was Sasuke himself, making it no mystery. For some reason, the rest of his clan went for darker colors instead of the bright blue that Sasuke sported.

In his opinion, it gave his clan an unnecessary sinister image, they were already badass enough with the police uniform and the almost universal dark and bishonen features that the entire freaking clan boasted.

He did not know where Naruto lived. No one did. He'd asked Iruka and all the teacher had said had been that Naruto had not filled in the camp when writing the form to access the academy. Sasuke had not tried to follow him and the blond had never invited him to his home.

However, Sasuke knew where Naruto spent the majority of his time. The training ground that only Naruto frequented, often said to be haunted by a demon or something. Sasuke didn't pay attention to the legend, but did appreciate that it kept the training ground solitary, for it allowed him and Naruto to train undisturbed.

It didn't take long for Sasuke to arrive at the training ground and confirm that his target was in its expected place. Congratulating himself on the accurate intelligence, Sasuke swooped down, taking a particularly long leap to land next to the site's entrance. He walked in, ignoring completely the odd looks sent his way as he did.

Without a moment of hesitation, he walked right up to the blond who was busy pounding the dummies, as he always did.

"Naruto…"

The word got the blond to stop training immediately. Sasuke was taken aback by the incredibly quick response he got. Usually, the boy did not stop training despite losing focus on it. Sasuke guessed that perhaps he was a tad, or perhaps much, closer to the boy than he'd been before and… it left a warm feeling in his chest.

Regardless, he squashed the feeling and focused himself on the task at hand. "We need to talk."

Naruto regarded him with a look and a posture that Sasuke interpreted as his way of telling him whether they'd talk right then and there or if he wanted to talk somewhere else. There was no need to head somewhere else, the training ground was deserted and people did not get close to it.

For this, he thanked the villagers' bigotry.

Sasuke went to the wall furthest away from the entrance and sat down, patting the spot next to him. "Come here." He ordered, sighing when Naruto complied without a word, but without much enthusiasm.

Sasuke himself wasn't completely happy with what he was about to do. Naruto certainly had his reasons to hold information back, but Sasuke needed to know. He needed to know because he wanted to help Naruto. They'd been friends for so long that Sasuke was wondering what secret would be so important that it'd be kept even from him.

"I… I want to know…" Sasuke began. How to phrase the question? How to phrase a question that he was certain would sound insulting and, well, unnecessarily direct, when he didn't want to make Naruto think that he would hate him for keeping said secret.

Naruto frowned. That was odd. Naruto rarely frowned. His non-expression looked more like he was bored than he was upset. Clearly, he understood the general gist of what Sasuke wanted to know. This confirmed to Sasuke that Naruto knew the secret that Kakashi had spoken about.

"Can you tell me?" Sasuke asked, looking at Naruto in the eye. He refrained from touching the boy because he didn't want to think he was being pushy. "If… If you don't want to… I'll understand. I won't pressure you."

Naruto frowned again, looking intently at the ground, hugging his own knees. "Promise." Naruto said, his voice even softer than usual.

"Promise what?"

The blond looked at him. "Promise you won't hate me." He said, looking at Sasuke with despair filled eyes. Sasuke almost crashed into a hundred pieces at the sight. He couldn't bear to see Naruto like that. It bears repeating to note that Sasuke finds it hard to reconcile the images he got from the blond.

On the one hand, was the Shinobi Naruto, the boy Sasuke found himself respecting and in awe of. The one who trained from sunrise to sun down, every day, despite missions.

On the other hand… was Naruto, the lonely little boy. Naruto was not truly alone. Not completely isolated. He had the Hokage. He had the Ichiraku family. He had Sasuke and his family. But even so… Sasuke was uncertain of how close those relations were. The Hokage was a very busy man who could not attend to the needs of a little boy, much less one who'd suffered enough to somehow end up like Naruto had.

The Uchiha clan's head family had welcomed Naruto in its entirety and the clan had warmed up to him over time, some even admiring his stoic demeanor, but even then, it was at most a casual relationship, since he met them only once in a while, what with everyone being incredibly busy all the time.

The Ichiraku family, likewise, had to work the entire day in order to survive. From the fact that they settled in one of the bad parts of the village, Sasuke could tell that they were not coasting through life on the large coffers coming from being an old and wealthy clan. Yet they were quite willing to actually offer Naruto, someone who ate truly ridiculous amounts of ramen (The few times Sasuke had accompanied Naruto to Ichiraku's had given him the insight to never tell his mother to cook ramen, no amount of it would ever satisfy the blond who had a black hole for a stomach when speaking about ramen), a sizable discount.

Kind as they were, there was only so much they could do.

Sasuke… was probably the closest relationship the orphan boy had. The blond would probably be utterly crushed if Sasuke ever betrayed his trust or turned to hate him. Finding himself in a familiar position, Sasuke nodded towards the blond. "I promise I will never, ever, hate you." Sasuke said, showing his hands to prove he was not crossing his fingers.

Naruto looked at the ground again. There was great hesitation in his eyes, for a few moments, before he removed his orange jacket (this one looked new… just where did Uzumaki get a goddamn Orange Jumpsuit, let alone spares of the damn thing!?) and then removed the white shirt under it (the shirt was also new).

This left a body that was curiously absent of marks. Sasuke was certain it'd been riddled with scars before. There weren't even marks to note the new ones he'd gotten. His regeneration had to be really powerful if there was absolutely no mark of there ever being a scar in only a week.

There was also a clear lack of the bandages that had once covered the entirety of Uzumaki's torso, though his upper body, along with his shoulders, remained covered with pristine white bandages. It kind of made Sasuke wonder why exactly someone would cover their body in bandages. Some Shinobi did it to have a ready source of bandages in case they ever proved necessary or to tape loose sleeves and pant legs, which helped whenever it came to running through difficult treks.

The blond took in a deep breath and clasped his hands together in front of his stomach, channeling chakra in a calm manner. In a few short seconds, black marks began to appear around the boy's navel, quickly growing to resemble undecipherable characters. They grew, changed and morphed, until they resembled a spiral in their arrangement.

Soon enough, lines from the symbol began to spread across Uzumaki's torso, forming nine different strands of characters that expanded away and then finished by curving into spirals of their own. It looked not unlike a collection of ink rivers fed by whirlpools that fed into a larger whirlpool. It was both an amazing and confusing sight.

Sasuke had never, ever, seen a seal that complex or majestic looking. It had to truly be a work of art beyond the abilities of most ninja gifted with sealing abilities. He himself only knew the barest basics of Fuuinjutsu, namely, that simply copying a seal is going to blow you up or make it misfire horribly, even if it's a harmless seal. These things are not to be taken lightly at all, which is why sealmasters are so few and so highly valued.

"What… what is that seal?" Sasuke asked, as Naruto put his shirt back on.

"I…" Naruto seemed doubtful.

Sasuke thought he might even now be doubting Sasuke's promise. This insulted him. Why would the blond think he'd hate him?

What could possibly be so damning about that seal? What could possibly move a person to hate someone so easily?

Naruto did not seem like someone who would doubt himself so much, so whatever it was, he had to be incredibly worried about it. Naruto grabbed his jacket and put it on, while Sasuke's inner debate raged with itself. The blond had actually moved a few steps away from the Uchiha, a clear sign to him that Naruto was fearing the worst.

The sting of guilt, soul crushing guilt, was starting to make Sasuke's chest hurt worse than if he'd been outright stabbed in the heart. He felt like a fucking scumbag for forcing Naruto to come out with as much as he had. The blond would have told him, wouldn't he? Naruto trusted him.

Why, then, did Naruto seem so much against telling him the truth? It only made Sasuke's curiosity burn all the more.

The Uchiha was wondering whether or not it'd be okay to keep pursuing the truth. Naruto had trusted him enough to know about the existence of the seal, and Sasuke was certain that with time, he'd be able to figure out just what was it. Even if he couldn't, he had his family to fall back on, and Itachi was sure to know.

As Hokage candidate, he was aware of pretty much every dirty little secret Konoha had to offer and Sasuke knew for a fact he was his elder brother's main weakness. He had gotten a bit rusty at pulling off the puppy dog eyes, but he could still manage them with a bit of work.

But… he did not want to go behind his best friend's back. He did not want to become a liar by telling Naruto he wouldn't push it if he didn't want to know. If Naruto did not want to tell him…

… Sasuke would back down. He cared more about keeping Naruto as a friend than about knowing this secret, ultimately. If it came down to that… well, he could live with his curiosity.

Seeing that Naruto would not continue the sentence he'd started, Sasuke stood up and tried to smile his best smile. He did not know if he managed it. All he could do, however, was to place a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder to turn him to face him. "You don't have to tell me." The Uchiha finally said. "When you're ready… I'll be waiting."

Naruto shook his head, taking a few steps back and shrinking into himself even further, pulling his bulky, slightly oversized jacket tightly against his body.

"I… I am… I am the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi No Youko."


	6. Obligatory Tournament Arc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi is more of a troll than people give him credit for and it shows...

Sasuke blinked.

Now it all made sense.

Sasuke knew what a Jinchuuriki was. A human sacrifice used to hold back one of the tailed beasts, imprisoned in the human host's chakra and mind. The beast, in turn, involuntarily granted its host some of its power for use and when the host grew powerful enough, they could forcefully take the rest of the beast's power.

Konoha had never had a jinchuuriki before, though. Konoha had always prided itself on being the greatest of the five villages without having to fall back on one of the most powerful weapons in the continent. Yet…

…Here he was, the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, standing right in front of him.

The seal was there to hold the creature within Naruto's chakra coils, suppressed by his will.

Now everything made sense. The ridiculous regeneration was most likely one of the boons granted to Naruto by the Kyuubi, as well as the ridiculous endurance and toughness. It also explained why he was an outcast. The adult population… must have known who he was. Bijuu are beings of chakra, they can't die.

The generally accepted theory was that the Fourth Hokage had sealed it within himself and then had the Shinigami reap both their souls at once, causing the rest of the Kyuubi's power to disperse since there was no will driving it. But… was such a thing even possible? Nobody knew, but the Hokage was the greatest sealmaster in history, so… nobody doubted it. If it could be done, then it stands for reason that the Yondaime had been the one to pull it off.

Or perhaps, nobody had questioned it because everyone knew the truth except the younger generations. Everyone knew who the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi was. Everyone knew that the little blond boy who rarely if ever talked and who almost always had his head buried in a book when not training…

The fact that the training ground he used so much was said to be haunted by a demon… The rumor wasn't referring to an old folk's tale, it was simply because the jinchuuriki used it a lot.

At that point, Sasuke had come to a startling realization.

Uzumaki Naruto was a weapon.

Uzumaki Naruto was not a human being and had never been allowed to act as such.

All that Naruto had been allowed to do were the things that would help him further grow as a weapon. Exercising. That was all that Naruto ever did. Whether it be his mind or his body, Naruto was always, always training. Perhaps clearer heads had figured that, under such stress, the will powering the seal would break.

That would explain how and why Naruto was so close to the Hokage. Perhaps it was guilt that drove the Hokage to look out for the small blond boy, or perhaps he was simply close to the boy to insure his loyalty, whether it be to the village or just to the man himself.

Sasuke didn't care. His opinion of the Hokage, of his entire village, had dropped immensely. The majority of the village shunned and ignored the blond boy that was even now trying to hide within his clothes. They could only see the demon sealed within instead of the person holding it back. Ungrateful bastards, the lot of them.

Naruto ducked his head, his bangs falling over and covering what was visible of his face, and took a few steps further back.

Sasuke schooled his features, the shock and anger he was feeling must have certainly shown up in his face. Most likely the blond had taken things the wrong way and assumed he'd been angry at him. Taking a deep breath, Sasuke struggled to calm himself, taking a step forward.

Naruto merely stood in place, though Sasuke could tell the blond was itching to bolt. Thinking on the boy's reactions, he guessed that he had to have been betrayed before for the reason inked in his stomach. Otherwise, he would not have been so incredibly terrified of Sasuke hating him for it.

"Hey…" Sasuke called, trying his damnedest to sound as unthreatening as possible. "… I promised, didn't I?"

Naruto blinked.

The wind had started to pick up some time ago, and the afternoon was beginning to give way to dusk and the evening. Despite it being summer, today was not a particularly warm day and the night was shaping up to be a chilly affair. The wind was particularly strong now, however, which was what caused a momentary distraction, softly whistling as it ran through the wide open space that was cleared in the training ground for spars.

Sasuke smiled a disarming smile, the best he could. "You're not the Kyuubi, Naruto. You're its container, its warden." He said, taking another step forward. Looking the blond over, it seemed that he'd calmed down considerable.

His eyes, before filled with anxiety, anticipation and the hopeless despair of one too jaded to believe in people anymore, had changed completely. The blond's posture had relaxed, as well, and it reflected in his eyes. There was hope in them. There was hope that Sasuke was different. Sasuke took another step forward until they were just a step away from each other.

"I don't hate you." Sasuke informed the boy. "Even if you were the fox itself… it would change nothing." He said.

Naruto shrunk into himself, looking at the floor, flinching. Sasuke disregarded the reaction and pulled the small boy into a hug. It took very long for Naruto to relax and simply remain there, though Sasuke had lost track of the time by then. He once again found himself having the strange role of serving as a prodigy shinobi's ground cable.

Absent mindedly, he noted that he would probably have great success working as a Shinobi shrink or something.

* * *

"Did you know about Naruto?" Sasuke asked, his gaze hard as steel and cold as ice. His eyes roamed the entire table, settling on no one and inspecting every member of his family as they stopped eating and turned to regard him.

His father was the first to answer his question. "That depends." The man said.

"What happened, Sasuke?" his mother questioned, sounding and looking as unpleasant and uncomfortable as she probably felt. Sasuke, however, did not care about the fact that he might make them uncomfortable.

It hadn't been only Naruto and his sensei who'd hidden the information from him, and both of the other ones had eventually led to him learning about said secret. His family, however, seemed more intent on silently asking each other how to proceed in this case. "How long did you think it'd take me to learn?" He asked, turning to Itachi.

"A little more." The Elite Jounin answered, not even bothering to stop eating as he did. "I figured that I would have to tell you when you started suspecting, but it seems you have managed to find out about Naruto-kun's secret without my aid." He continued. No sense in pretending he was uncomfortable by answering his brother's questions.

Of course Itachi knew. He was the Hokage's most likely successor. "Why… why keep it a secret?"

"It is not only kept a secret from the younger generation, it's kept a secret from the world, Sasuke. Nobody is to learn that Konoha has the greatest of the nine Bijuu as its secret weapon." The Uchiha Prodigy said, setting his chopsticks down and finally deigning to look at Sasuke.

"So, then, you too think he's only good to be a weapon, then…" Sasuke said, shaking his head. "What about the things you told me? About how a Shinobi shouldn't be just an emotionless weapon?"

"The circumstances are different, Sasuke." Itachi said, narrowing his eyes. "By the time I had any say in it, Naruto was already beyond saving." He added.

Sasuke raised one eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Itachi merely shook his head.

The Uchiha Family's dinner, a rare occasion in which they were together, was a quiet affair that night. Nobody wished to speak, the tension being too thick. Sasuke knew that his brother was hiding something, and he knew that it had to do with what had been done to Naruto to turn him into the weapon he was.

It was odd for Itachi to outright refuse to answer a question. Itachi had never before refused a question without giving Sasuke a reason why he didn't answer, though 'classified' had become one of the elder boy's favorite words over time.

That night, as Sasuke tried to sleep, he found himself thinking more and more about how everything in the puzzle made sense now. So long had he been completely confused by the mere existence of someone like Naruto and now everything made sense.

Whatever horrible upbringing had left Naruto as broken as he was… Sasuke decided to take it upon himself to make up for it. Naruto did not deserve what had been done to him. He'd been a hero whose existence alone saved the village, and they'd repaid him by turning him into a weapon at their service and then hated him for it.

Jinchuuriki were feared.

Feared for their power, feared for their natural talents and feared for their tailed beasts. With good reason, Naruto would be feared even more than all the other Jinchuuriki. The Kyuubi was by far the greatest and most powerful of the tailed beasts and supposedly the most intelligent of them, as well, though Sasuke didn't know if that was true, since he had no way to compare.

The greatest Shinobi monument to destruction known was the Valley Of The End, a valley carved by the clash between Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama at the height of their power. What is even today one of the greatest accomplishments in destruction…

… Is something that a tailed beast can replicate by dragging one of its tails through the land.

There was a reason why the Bijuu were as feared as they were, when the weakest of them could probably destroy an entire village if they weren't countered with a sealmaster. With only one art capable of holding them back, an art that was complicated and required many supplementary abilities to be properly used, they were basically a ninja village's worst nightmare in a war.

The only thing that could truly counter a Jinchuuriki was another jinchuuriki. Or a whole bunch of high level ninja. To make a comparison, Iwa had suffered massive losses in manpower during the war, yet had left the war relatively unharmed infrastructure-wise thanks to the fact that it had not one but two experienced Jinchuuriki who could control their tailed beasts to some extent.

The current Mizukage was also a Jinchuuriki and had squashed the rebellion of an entire clan on his own almost effortlessly, despite the clan in question being known for its bloodthirsty nature and their prowess in combat.

Sasuke had also heard rumors about the Guardian of Kumo, who had complete control over his tailed beast and was supposed to be ridiculously strong, to the point that even other jinchuuriki were afraid of him.

But that man… only had the eight tails and, despite being only second in power to the Kyuubi… it still paled in comparison to it.

Konoha had the Kyuubi, the most powerful of the tailed beasts by a long shot. Yet… Sasuke found himself entertaining treasonous thoughts. But then again, who could blame him, at that point? If this is what it meant to be as loyal to Konoha as possible, Sasuke preferred having faulty loyalty.

After all, if it meant sacrificing his best, and perhaps only, friend just so Konoha could have a weapon…

Konoha could go fuck itself.

* * *

Sakura knew there was something odd with her teammates that morning. Lately, Sasuke had been tense around Naruto for some reason, which, given that Sasuke hovered around Naruto most of the time, was actually quite obvious. The pinkette had known the blond only for a month, having basically ignored his existence during the academy (quite an easy feat), and thus she didn't know if there was something different around him.

Whatever had gotten Sasuke in such a mood had certainly something to do with the blond boy.

Yet… that morning, when they arrived at training, Sasuke seemed to be completely okay… While she was glad that whatever had been eating him had passed, she was wondering what it had been in the first place.

Kakashi showed up in a flurry of leaves and smoke, startling Sakura. Because he was three hours early that day.

"Okay, boys and Sakura, it's time to begin training for real now!" Kakashi said, and Sakura could practically see the smirk under his mask. "I let you guys train yourselves to get acquainted with each other's abilities and to improve your general physique until you could actually survive what I have in mind for your training."

Surely, that was an exaggeration. Kakashi was a lazy bastard. He probably got a dressing down from someone who told him to stop fucking around with Team 7 and actually train them and now he would train them as harshly as they could so they'd stop complaining about it. Well, Sakura wasn't sure, but she had actually complained about this to her teammates, quite loudly, while waiting for Kakashi every morning, act which involved either getting the tar beaten out of her in a spar or getting herself exhausted when it came to the day's selection of D Rank Missions, and if they finished those early, then she'd train some more.

It might be murder on her limbs, but hey, she was now very good friends with Sasuke and, she hoped, with Naruto too because of it, so… fair trade.

"What do you mean, sensei?" the resident pinkette asked.

"I mean that you guys are ready to begin actual Shinobi training, the way I was trained! First, tree climbing! By the end of today you'll either be experts on it or will have gotten acquainted with the floor in an intimate fashion." The silver haired jounin said in the tone that a sage might use when dispensing wise advise.

"Uhm… sensei, we can climb trees. They taught it at the academy…" Sakura said, blinking.

"Yes, but you have to use your hands for that, Sakura. It's useful when you can't use chakra for whatever reason." Kakashi explained, raising one finger. "This is why we're training on a forest today!"

Sakura had found it odd that last night she'd received a letter, somehow, from Kakashi that told her they'd be gathering at a different training ground from usual. "So, we're gonna climb with just our feet and chakra?"

"Yep! What you have to do is fairly simple, apply a layer of chakra between you and the tree bark that will stick to it. This also works in the ground. If done properly, you will have perfect traction in any surface and the ability to give physics the middle finger." Kakashi continued the explanation, turning around and walking next to the closest tree. The trees here were particularly thick and tall, although nowhere near as huge as the average tree in the Forest Of Death, from what Sakura knew.

These kinds of trees had been the Shodaime Hokage's favorite way of warding off invaders. After all, these things could withstand incredible amounts of force and their size had made spotting Konoha in the forest quite hard, although back then the village was small enough to actually be called a village in the first place, while these days it was more of a city.

Sasuke looked thoughtful. "This exercise is similar to the technique we use to leap from tree to tree." Sakura could see how it ran in the same principle, though maintaining the layer of chakra for more than an instant would probably be harder. Not to mention, there was also the factor of gravity to consider in vertical movement.

"Yes, though that's relatively simpler. You will need to regulate the amount of chakra you pour, since while it doesn't matter if the branch you jump off breaks behind you, here if you don't properly regulate the chakra you will be blasted off or fall off the surface you're clinging to." Explained Kakashi, again with the sagely tone. "Go ahead, give it a try. A running start might help the first few tries until you get sticking to the tree right."

Team 7 gave a nod and each went to one side of the ridiculously thick tree. Kakashi took a few steps back and began to count backwards from three, stopping at two and yelling go instead of one.

This spurred all three of them on, prompting their rush up the three.

Sakura noticed that it was surprisingly easy to maintain a steady amount of chakra in her feet. Her chakra had always been particularly responsive and easy to control, though recently she'd noticed a marked increase in difficulty when it came to controlling it. True, her chakra control was still as close to perfect as you get before entering Tsunade territory, but she'd gone from the ability to regulate it pretty much drop by drop almost perfectly to slipping every now and then.

She noticed this problem when one of her feet slipped from the bark for an instant before she caught it again. Regardless, her focus was absolute and she was quickly able to reach one of the branches that stood nearly twenty feet from the ground. It was about as thick as Sasuke at the shoulders and just about as long as Kakashi was tall. Meaning, a very big branch.

Standing on it was as easy as standing on the ground, given the rough texture of the tree's bark.

When she looked down, however, she saw that her teammates had not performed as well as she had. A few feet off the ground, there was a massive portion of bark entirely missing, looking as if someone had exploded the tree inside out and taken out the bark that way and below it was Naruto, standing on his feet and looking… as he always did.

Meanwhile, Sasuke was also on his feet on the ground, though he seemed far more upset with his performance than Naruto was.

"Well, it was to be expected, Sakura does have the best chakra control out of all of us. Better than mine, in fact." Kakashi admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "Anyway, Sasuke, you either used too little chakra or lost control of it so it didn't stick to the bark. You have reserves to spare, but don't overdo it, either." The jounin said, wagging his finger at Sasuke. "Naruto, meanwhile, you did the complete opposite. I don't think you have to worry about using too little chakra, so use the smallest amount you can and work on lowering it if you keep blasting off."

Both nodded.

"I'll leave you guys to this exercise, meanwhile, Sakura, I want you to run up the tree and then work on sliding down while still sticking to the tree. It sounds complicated but it isn't, you just have to find the right amount of chakra and keep a steady stream. Don't go too high, though, you might hurt yourself on the way down." He added, looking at the girl who nodded. "Once you've got the gist of that down, I'll teach you how to turn and increase or decrease the speed of your movement."

It was clear that her superb control was already giving her a lead when Kakashi started instructing them in the matters of chakra that would eventually lead into jutsu practice. Sakura squashed the smug feeling rising in her chest that told her she should gloat about that, her teammates had never mocked her for being physically pathetic compared to them.

"Get to it, Team 7, I have to go annoy the other jounin sensei!" Kakashi barked, vanishing in a swirl of leaves and smoke just as he'd come.

Sakura smiled as she put a hand against the tree. Her brain automatically told her that trying out the exercise in full would be foolish, at that point, since she'd most likely either stick her feet to the bark and break her ankles from the momentum or slip off entirely while experimenting to find the perfect amount of chakra necessary.

So she decided to, instead, stick her hand to the bark and try to move it. If she used too much chakra, she'd stick to the bark and be unable to move. If she used too little, movement would be unhindered. She had to find an amount of chakra that permitted movement, but still offered resistance.

It was all in the thickness of the chakra layer between her hand and the tree, and for Sakura, who was used to handling minuscule amounts of chakra, it proved to be child's play to cycle through different amounts until she found one she was satisfied with.

When she found one she considered good enough, she worked on manipulating that exact same amount of chakra through the tenketsu on her feet. This gave the comical sight of Sakura appearing to swipe the branch she was standing on with her feet for several minutes as she worked on it.

It did not help that every once in a while, the tree would shake from the efforts of her teammates to climb up, though she took it in stride and decided against moving to another tree to go on with the exercise. It'd help her deal with disruptions in her focus better, since she wouldn't always have the time to focus if she ever planned to use this in a real life situation instead of solely in training, where there were no distractions.

Once she was happy with the amount of chakra she manipulated in her feet, she stood against the tree and stuck her hands and feet to it, swiftly lowering the amount of chakra in the layer that separated her from the tree to begin sliding down.

She noticed the purpose of the exercise almost instantly. Gravity made it harder to maintain a steady speed, because your velocity increased as you fell. The exercise was two-layered, in one hand, you have to manipulate your chakra so that it's thick enough to stick to the bark, but not thick enough to remain completely fixed to it.

And then you had to alter the thickness of the chakra layer in it so that you did not lose control of your descent. Kakashi had said he'd help her control her speed later, but there was nothing stopping her from working on it as she went. Otherwise, the landings would prove unpleasant. Unlike tree climbing, with which she surmised she would have no problem, this exercise would probably be rather complicated for her to master.

When she did make it back down, she noticed that one of her teammates, who else could it be but Naruto, sported a few scratches here and there and that he was barefoot. There was also a pair of sandals that had suffered from one too many explosions discarded at a near distance from where Naruto was currently standing.

In hindsight, it was probably easier to stick to the tree barefoot, even if it'd hurt more when the inevitable fuck up came.

The sound of steps against hard wood came to a sudden stop, and Naruto quickly tackled her from out of the way of a Sasuke shaped missile, which she only saw when the dust cloud dispersed and she noticed Sasuke's pained expression. He'd probably dropped from a big height and hadn't thought of rolling with the landing.

"Damn…" Sasuke muttered, standing up and stretching his legs. "This is harder than I'd thought."

"Well, you guys have a lot of chakra, larger amounts of chakra make it progressively harder to control it." Sakura reasoned. "Compared to the both of you, I have a minuscule amount of chakra, so it's easy for me to control it."

Sasuke nodded. "You have more chakra than before, though, right?"

"Yes. A proper diet and physical exercise do help." Sakura admitted. She'd been shocked to know that she only had herself to blame for her pitiful chakra reserves before, neglecting physical exercise and dieting so as to remain 'thin'. Naruto stomped all over her reasoning: He trained like a madman and was the thinnest person Sakura knew.

Sasuke trained zealously, as well, and was not a muscle-bound monstrosity, but rather lean and, even if she chastised herself for thinking it, quite attractive to her eyes.

She had yet to grow sizable muscles and her skin remained soft to the touch, although she understood that it wouldn't be long until her body started to resemble the athletic body of a Kunoichi more than her cute civilian little girl body.

"Got any advise for us? You're kind of our authority when it comes to chakra control." Sasuke admitted, sounding completely honest and earnest. It was strange to see Sasuke asking for assistance so openly. Before, even when she offered to help him study for difficult tests, he's just brush her off without even considering her offers.

Then again, every stinking time she'd offered him aid had been in an effort to get closer to him to be his girlfriend, while now she wanted to be closer to him to be his friend.

"Not really." Sakura said, frowning. "What applies to me most likely won't apply to you." She admitted, falling deeply into thought. "And the way I thought about it probably would overcomplicate things for you."

Sasuke took no offense to the thought that Sakura would have understood something far more complex than he. Sasuke was more talented for the Shinobi arts, yes, but Sakura was far more talented in academic pursuit than he and she had probably approached the problem of controlling her chakra very differently from what he would have. "Humor me." Sasuke said.

Sakura sighed. "I had the chakra layer under my foot formed before I started climbing the tree." That was already a difference from what Sasuke did. He actually formed the layer when he put his first step into the tree, using the running start to give himself the purchase he needed to keep going up.

Sasuke nodded, seeing the wisdom in the approach..

"I also calculated the exact amount of chakra to use, which I can only do because my control is so good. You just have to find the amount that works for you and work on making it instinctual to use that. The first part was easy for me, but it'll probably be a lot more complicated for you." Sakura said, leaning back and tapping her chin, pondering how to proceed. "Then again, I'm not really sure, I'm just going from how I did it."

Sasuke nodded. "Makes sense, I guess." Sasuke said. "So I just have to remain pending of it until it's a reflex."

"Pretty much, yes." Sakura confirmed. "Did you get that, Naruto?"

The blond merely nodded. Sakura smiled and got back to the exercise that Kakashi had probably made up on the spot for her, considering she'd made the prior one pointless.

She made it a point, however, to have all three start at once and race to the top. She might have eventually been defeated on her race to the top, but that was only on their twentieth try, and she was the only one not bruised from meeting the land.

Though her feet hurt a bit from a few harsh landings.

* * *

While his team was training, Kakashi was doing something far more important than being there for moral support that they didn't need.

Namely, he had gone to find Asuma and Kurenai, the teachers for the other two passing teams this year (a particularly pathetic academy graduation year, he imagined, to have failed two thirds of the class, then again, some jounin just didn't want to be teachers), which he hadn't managed to do thus far.

Until he randomly came across Asuma while he was observing his team weed the same garden that Kakashi had taken as his team's first mission. It was, however, going significantly slower with the fact that neither the Nara or Akimichi seemed willing to actually put in some effort. The Yamanaka was doing it mostly on her own, though she did get distracted by yelling at her teammates every once in a while.

"Yo." Kakashi said, making a dramatic Shunshin right next to Asuma, startling him into dropping his cigarette from his mouth. Showing why he was a jounin, he caught it in the air and brought it back to his mouth, before smoothing his every feature so it seemed he'd never been startled, all of which was done fast enough to prevent his genin from noticing he'd been caught by surprise at all. Just goes to show what someone is willing to do to protect their image.

"Hello, Kakashi." Asuma said, sounding more than a tad annoyed. He was trying to act like he was actually paying attention to his team while imagining Kurenai in a skimpy little bikini. How exactly Kakashi knew that he was is better left for another time, let's just say he did and move on. "What do you want?" he grumbled.

"Um… Sensei… who's that guy?" One of Asuma's genin, the Yamanaka if Kakashi guessed right, asked, making Kakashi take notice of the fact that they'd assembled in front of the duo of jounin. He promptly dismissed said thought and focused on Asuma again.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your cute little genin?" Kakashi asked, which he recognized made him sound more than a tad creepy. It made his own genin furious, but it probably wouldn't sit well with the new ones, unless they knew he was actually harmless as far as that goes.

"Kids, this is Kakashi." Asuma said, letting out a puff of smoke as he did. "This is an example of the kind of Shinobi you don't want to be." The jounin sensei explained, once again turning to Kakashi. "Now tell me what you want."

Kakashi pouted under his mask, knowing that Asuma would somehow be able to tell he was pouting. Ninja tricks, they say. In truth, Kakashi was just that expressive with his single eye. Blame it on him having lots of practice. "Maa, I'll spill." Kakashi said, eye-smiling at Asuma. "I've been thinking that we need to have a bonding exercise between our teams, just so they get used to working with each other outside of their teams."

Asuma looked completely deadpan at Kakashi. "You're suggesting joint training? You just want me to do your work for you."

Kakashi shook his head. "Tempting though it might be, not quite." Kakashi said, rather shamelessly admitting how lazy he was. "That's next month." He added. "What I mean to do is organize a tournament between our Genin, to see how far along they've come since the academy and how they stand next to each other."

"That's… surprisingly thorough planning for you, Kakashi." Asuma said, raising one eyebrow. "What's in it for the winner of this little tournament?"

"Well…" Kakashi said, rubbing his masked chin. "I hadn't thought that far. If my team wins, you'll help Naruto with the wind affinity I'm almost entirely certain he has, I'll ask Kurenai for help tutoring Sakura in Genjutsu."

Asuma raised one eyebrow. "Sounds fair enough." Kakashi inwardly cheered, since the only other wind user he knew who was good enough to teach he wouldn't allow anywhere within spitting distance of Naruto. "If I win, you will teach all three of my students for a week, no laziness allowed."

Kakashi laughed. "I accept that." He said, making Asuma raise an eyebrow in seeming concern. Kakashi's confidence in his team must have scared the bearded jounin. "So… how about tomorrow?"

"Sounds good." Asuma replied, nodding. Kakashi grinned mentally, because Asuma did not know the shit he was walking right into. Kakashi had full confidence in his team's abilities and their chances in something like this.

"Okay, now, do you know where to find Kurenai?"

Asuma shook his head.

Kakashi sighed. He'd get back to his kids later than he'd expected to. Ah, well, more time to read smut in public. He was certain that any minute now Sakura would snap and shred his precious, so his reading time had been diminished greatly.

He briefly heard the team's kunoichi's shriek of rage at the laziness of her comrades before he took to the rooftops, his nose beginning to twitch as it searched for Kurenai's scent, filtering every other smell in the area.

Finding it, he set off in her general direction, leaving most people wondering how the hell someone could make such ridiculously accurate jumps (roof to lamp to roof) while reading. That, my friends, is what being a jounin is all about.

Once he arrived at a training ground that was more in line with a simple park, lacking any training facilities whatsoever, he noticed Kurenai standing over Kiba, who was rubbing his head and crouched down.

A few steps away was the team's Hyuuga rubbing the bridge of her nose in apparent exasperation and the team's Aburame trying his best to hide the small shakes of his body that indicate he was laughing inside. "Pervert?" Kakashi asked, appearing next to Kiba in a blur of speed, foregoing the chance to Shunshin and do a dramatic entrance.

"Oh, great, they're multiplying!" Kurenai stated, throwing her hands up. "What is with dog using ninja and perversion?" She asked, palming her forehead.

"What a way to say hi to an old comrade! I'm hurt!" Kakashi said, placing both hands in his heart and leaning back, tears brimming from his lone eye.

"No you're not." Kurenai said, deadpan.

"I totally was." Kakashi said, folding his arms over his chest and pouting, knowing full well how much it annoyed Kurenai.

Much to his disappointment, however, Kurenai did not continue on their little game, instead, turning around to face the rest of her team. Apparently, the Inuzuka of the team had snuck away from the two somewhere during the confrontation and had approached his teammates to discreetly get away from Kurenai's righteous female fury. "Guys, this is Hatake Kakashi, Elite Jounin and pervert." Said Kurenai. "Kakashi, those are Hinata, Shino and Kiba." She said, pointing at every one of them in turn.

"Yo." Kiba, the scruffy looking brown haired boy, said, waving.

Shino, the boy with the high collar and shades, nodded his head.

Hinata, the girl with the milky white eyes that signaled the Byakugan's presence, however, looked at him intently for a few seconds. "Hello." She greeted, after her gaze softened.

Seemed she was trying to get a read on his body language, only to find herself blocked by the fact that Kakashi's entire body screamed 'lazy pervert' from every angle you looked at it, somehow. Kakashi had not spent an inordinate amount of time at ANBU uselessly. Infiltration missions are a dime a dozen there, so Kakashi had learned to project his image well enough to fool even the Hyuuga clan, Konoha's experts on reading body language.

"I suppose you have something to say?" Kurenai asked.

It seemed she was actually far more willing to believe he might have something important to say. Kurenai, much as she denied it, always tried to think the best of people and whereas Asuma had assumed Kakashi wanted to get away from his students for a while, Kurenai seemed to be willing to at least give him a chance. So he explained his idea to her.

"Well, what do you think?"

"It does sound interesting." Kurenai admitted. "But I don't think my kids are ready for a real fight, yet."

"What do you mean, sensei? I'll totally kick Uchiha's ass!" Kiba boasted, standing up to his full height. "We've trained really hard for an entire month, that's got to count for something!"

Kurenai did not know anything about his team, so Kakashi assumed she actually thought Kiba's words had weight to them. She also did not truly know what she was getting into.

"Kiba-kun is right, sensei… I want to test my strength, too!" The Hyuuga said. Kakashi hummed in thought at the display. The Hyuuga seemed quite an interesting case. Despite her words, Kakashi could pretty much see the doubt in her eyes, when it came down to it.

The Aburame, however, did not seem as confident in the team's chances as his teammates and sensei were. Smart guy, that one.

"Okay, fine." Kurenai said. "If we win, you'll help Kiba with training Akamaru and Hinata and Shino with their Ninjutsu. I assume you already told Asuma?"

"Yep. Found him first." Kakashi admitted, turning around. "That sounds good. If my team wins, you'll teach Sakura all you know about Genjutsu."

When he departed, Kakashi allowed himself a smile.

All was going according to the plan.


	7. You Lose!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Tournament Arc!

"Interesting fact." Kakashi said, rubbing his chin. "Apparently my prior methods were working better than I expected."

An exercise like this generally takes a few days to complete, usually even more.

Then again, his team had the village's jinchuuriki, the heir to the military police and a girl who, just by happenstance, ended up with perfect Chakra control. It was pretty much obvious that he had the best selection of the year. He found the tree where he'd left his genin earlier in a matter of minutes once he was freed from his other tasks, but there were no genin…

… Until a red and pink blur passed by him, followed by a blue and white one. They both raced up the tree, but shortly after the climb began, they both came back down, this time slow enough to discern the genin that had formed the blur.

"Ninja tag?" Kakashi asked.

"Ninja tag." Sakura confirmed, panting as she sat down, next to Sasuke, who was busy catching his breath.

"Where's Na-" Kakashi cut himself off mid-sentence. "Never mind." The silver haired man said, causing Sasuke to blink and look up to see Naruto calmly walking down a tree, a book in his hands. "To tell you guys the truth, I didn't think you'd be done this ridiculously fast. It takes most people several days to complete it."

Sasuke snorted. "We're not most people." He said, smirking at the jounin who offered them an eye smile.

"He figured out he could use the Sharingan to copy what I did." Sakura said, conversationally, causing Sasuke to give her a look that said 'Et tu, Sakura!?', except he wouldn't have known what that reference meant anyway. Ancient warlords of ages long gone were not the Uchiha's cup of tea.

"Anyway… we'll move on to more complicated variations of this until I'm certain you can play a game of ANBU tag and do well enough to beat a standard chunin." Kakashi said, rubbing his chin. "Also, for reasons I'd rather not say, I'm banned from the closest four hospitals. So we'll have to practice in low altitude or you will have to limp your way to the hospital on your own."

Sakura pouted. Sasuke sighed. "Well, it's something, at least…"

Naruto raised his head from his book, looked at Kakashi for an instant, and then returned to his book.

Kakashi smirked. "Oh, yes, it's something alright…"

* * *

The next day, they met in training ground 3, the training ground where the memorial stone was located.

For a very specific reason, in fact.

Today was the day in which Kakashi thought he'd prove his superiority as a jounin sensei, further enraging everyone and annoying the everloving crap out of everyone who derided him for being a lazy excuse for a teacher!

Even though he had actually done very little to create the ridiculous team he'd been gifted with. Details, details, nothing too important, at all. This meant that Kakashi was happy and had even decided to tell his team before the other two showed up. Them training right now would not be conductive to defeating the other teams.

He was not aware of how good the other teams were, or how bad, as the case might be, but it was wise to plan for the worst, and in this case, he was intending to up the ante in a way that would make having his team in tip top shape a must. Yes, he could not afford to lose like this, and therefore, he'd make damn sure his team knew that fact.

He already had enough trouble coming up with ways to train one set of ridiculously quick learning kids, there was no way he would take on a second set of kids, even if it wasn't as prodigious as his own.

Thinking on that, he finally figured out why the Hokage had given him this particular team. All three of its members held more potential than what met even a trained eye. And his teaching method, let them work things out themselves, was actually working. Most any other team would've been crushed by the B rank mission they completed in the first week, considering that all that they walked in with was what they had taught each other.

"Okay, boys and Sakura, today, we've got a particular mission!" The silver haired jounin began. "Today, we're going to have a joint training exercise with the other two rookie teams!"

"A joint training exercise?" Sakura asked, prompting Kakashi to smirk under his mask. Somehow, she could tell from the movement of his eye, which made her wonder just how used they'd gotten to Kakashi's antics.

"Yep!" Kakashi said, nodding to them. "You see, Konoha prides itself in its teamwork, and so far it's managed to make us the greatest of the five villages. To promote teamwork amongst the Shinobi corps in their entirety instead of just the teams themselves, we do these things every once in a while."

"Or… you just thought it up yesterday because I've never heard of something like this." Sasuke said, deadpan.

Kakashi eye smiled. "There's always some form of this, whether it be joint missions or training, most people don't even mention it since they never go well." Kakashi said, shrugging. "Anyway, since doing just that would be boring, I decided that we could do something more interesting."

"By which you mean you were bored and thought of some way to torture us." Sakura summarized.

"Pretty much, yes. I knew you were the smart one, Sakura." Kakashi said, patting her head, which made her facepalm and emit a long suffering sigh. Oh, how he loved annoying the everloving crap out of his genin. "Anyway, as I was saying, instead of a simple mission or exercise, you're going to have a tournament to see who's the strongest graduating genin team!"

Sasuke and Sakura blinked. "Really?" Said Sasuke, raising one eyebrow, looking positively amused by the idea. "I suppose there's a catch in there somewhere."

Kakashi shook his head. "Nope." He said, eye smiling at them. "It wounds me to know that you think so little of me, Sasuke!" said the jounin, feigning heartache and grabbing a fistful of his jacket where his heart would be. "Right here!"

"No, it doesn't!" the Uchiha snapped.

"You're probably enjoying it!" Sakura added.

Kakashi chuckled. "I am." He said. "Anyway, all you guys have to do is beat up your classmates. Namely, what you were doing back at the academy."

Sakura blushed in embarrassment. "Ah… I was… usually in the receiving end…" She admitted, a sheepish smile on her face.

"Sakura, I doubt anyone else has Naruto and Sasuke helping them with their Taijutsu. Besides, so long as you don't get right in front of the ones who are Taijutsu experts, you'll be fine." Kakashi said, waving her concerns away. "Besides, I'm sure you'll work much better as a team than what anyone else would manage and that would carry you through even if you were weaker than your classmates."

The pinkette nodded and sighed. "So, when is it?"

"In just about an hour from now. For the following hour, we will be going over strategies to take out each and every one of your classmates without lethal or crippling blows." Kakashi said. "I've got experience fighting just about every clan in Konoha and, lucky for us, they all belong to the major clans which I have plenty of experience with, so I'll watch as you guys stumble around and laugh quietly in the back at your unworkable plans!"

Sakura groaned. "Don't you want us to win?"

"Of course I want my cute little genin students to win." Kakashi said. "This is as much a training exercise as anything else and if I do it for you it would have no point. Also, for obvious reasons, Naruto is not going to help either."

"What obvious reasons?" Sasuke asked, frowning. What reason would Naruto have not to help them in this? Well, it could be related to THAT and if it was, then it certainly could be that Naruto had knowledge of the clans' abilities and how to counter them already, just in case.

Kakashi could tell that Sasuke was connecting the dots and smiled under his mask, pulling a pair of books with orange covers. "The new Icha Icha came out and I need someone to go buy it." The silver haired man stated, eye-smiling at the two Shinobi who sighed in frustration. "There's no way I'm standing in line for something like that, and Naruto will also pick up his own volume while at it."

Sakura was actually annoyed because while she possessed the general knowledge about the clans and their abilities that they could use, it was a fact that Naruto could put it into practice and his absence would most likely be severely detrimental to any plans they could make up, as Naruto would not know them.

Deciding that there wasn't much they could do about that, the genin decided their time was better spent figuring out ways to defeat every single technique their classmates could pull out. Luckily for either of them, they weren't that skilled, yet, or else they'd have to figure out to defeat the clans' prized techniques.

That was a political shitstorm inbound, Sasuke informed.

"I'll give you guys a hand. You will have to plan around Naruto, but that doesn't mean you can't count him for your plans. He'll probably get back here too late to join in on your planning session, trust me that line is tremendously long, so he won't be in on your plan." The jounin advised, peering from over his copy of the previous Icha Icha book from the one that Naruto had gone off to buy. "Remember."

Sakura frowned and turned to Sasuke. "Any ideas?"

Sasuke rubbed his chin, humming in thought as he did. "We wouldn't be able to convey a complex plan, but… He doesn't need that to work…" Sasuke said, his face scrunching up as he put his brainpower to the test. "Simple short commands on what we want him to do should suffice, thought they'd need to be clear and in the heat of battle it'd be complicated to relay them…"

Kakashi eye smiled. "That's a squad leader's duty, Sasuke." He said with a hidden smile beneath his mask, certain that Sasuke now understood the purpose of this exercise. Certainly, it would help him if he truly wanted to lead the squad when Kakashi did not feel like taking direct command. "One of the most common problems a commander faces is relaying his orders while in battle, to troops that don't know the real plan in detail and whom probably are not paying as much attention as they should. You don't have the latter here, as Naruto will pay plenty of attention to you."

Sakura pouted again. "So you're just making this pointlessly hard on us." She said, clear frustration seeping into her tone.

"That's not it." Sasuke said, shaking his head. "Sensei… do you really have this much faith in our abilities?" The Uchiha asked. Kakashi could tell in an instant why Sasuke would think someone putting so much faith in them weird. After all, he was 'the spare' who had only been accepted as heir because Itachi couldn't be.

Even if Fugaku denied any such thing, there was no doubt in Kakashi's mind that Sasuke still had a lingering inferiority complex regarding his brother. But then again, every ninja of Itachi's generation had felt the ripples that formed from Itachi's passing.

And to think, Sasuke held even more potential, yet untapped…

Maybe, just maybe, Kakashi was beginning to find out just long it would take until Sasuke found out something he wasn't supposed to. To be quite frank, Kakashi couldn't wait, because from his assessment…

It'd be quite soon, indeed.

* * *

Kurenai and Asuma eyed Kakashi warily, looking at the man who was even at this point, more interested in his little book than in anything else. The thing that had Kurenai scrunching her face in distaste, however, was the sight of the entire team sitting on a long log (that she didn't know hadn't been there that morning), all with…

… their heads stuck into small, pocket-sized books with orange covers.

"Kakashi… I knew of your habits, but to corrupt the mind of your genin to this extent…"

"You say something?" Asked a feminine voice, as the pinkette lifted one jade-colored eye from her book and stared questioningly at the red eyed jounin for a moment before going back to the book.

"They're my pride and joy, these kids." Kakashi said, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

Asuma actually laughed out loud at that. "Okay, then, we're here like we promised. It's noon and I want to get this over with so I can start going over our schedule, Kakashi." The bearded jounin said, walking next to the jounin seated in the log. He saw the three genin making a calculated move, standing up from the log, the Uchiha glancing at him briefly.

The Sarutobi Heir, however, narrowed his eyes. The kids were far too synchronized to be what he expected of a team trained by a man who couldn't even bother to show up on time for anything. He took a long drag of the cigarette hanging from his lower lip and directed a glance to the approaching forms of Shikamaru, Chouji and the one who was dragging them along, Ino.

"Why do we have to do this, again?" Shikamaru asked, sounding as bored as he looked.

"Because if you don't, I will report you to your mother." Asuma countered blandly.

"If you guys are gonna be like that this'll be easy as pie!" Kiba said, grinning as he looked around the assembled genin and jounin. "I can't wait to wipe that smug smirk off your face, Uchiha!" Kiba called, pointing a clawed finger at the Uchiha who was, indeed, smirking smugly.

"Kiba, focus on winning, then you can talk trash all you want." Kurenai said, her tone one of long suffering.

Kurenai's team, along with their sensei, took a few seconds longer to approach the circle that had formed around the still seated Copy Nin. A brief glance from Kakashi confirmed that everyone was, indeed, there.

"So… now that we're all here, I've decided to make this a tad more interesting." Kakashi said, offering an eye smile that would have disarmed even the most uptight of guards, but given the chills to any and all Shinobi within range. "How about a double or nothing?" Kakashi asked.

Asuma raised an eyebrow, as did Kurenai.

"What do you mean?" Asked the bearded jounin, speaking before Kurenai could.

"Simple. Team 7 VS Team 8 and Team 10." Kakashi explained. "My team is made up of the three best students in the graduating class and believe me, they've trained hard this past month, continuing their training even during the C rank mission they took on their first week."

This made both Kurenai and Asuma gasp in surprise, and most of the teams to look confused. "But I thought genin teams are only supposed to do D ranks! You said that, sensei!" Ino quickly gave voice to the genin's protests, taking the words off Kiba's mouth.

"No, Genin are supposed to do lower C ranks as well." Sakura explained. "However, this is left for more experienced genin teams preparing for the chunin exams." The pink haired girl continued, receiving a nod of approval from her sensei as she did.

"This is totally unfair!" Kiba yelled. "Three best students?! Naruto was the deadlast!"

"Only because he scored consistent zeros in anything that was not directly related to being a Shinobi." Shino interjected. "I do believe he had top marks in Taijutsu and was second only to Sasuke on Ninjutsu."

At this, the Uchiha smirked. "I don't recall a single instance of you ever laying a hand on him, Inuzuka." The amused black haired boy spoke, shoving his hands (and his little orange book) in his pocket.

"This is ridiculous, Kakashi." Said Kurenai. "There's no way that your team, no matter how good, could beat two teams at once." She said, sounding curious as to what the jounin could say to ascertain his point. There was the point that Konoha prided itself on teamwork, which meant that… Kakashi had probably planned to pull this off from the start.

Teamwork training had never been what he intended for his team. No, he wanted to train his team on taking out large numbers of opponents, while he'd also, as a side effect, provide a wider teamwork exercise for the other two teams.

"Maa, mine can." Kakashi said, smiling widely under his mask, knowing full well that Kurenai had realized the point of his exam. Asuma had, as well, if the man's pensive state was anything to go by.

"Fine by me." Asuma said, letting out a puff of smoke. "You guys better not hold back." Asuma muttered, plopping down next to Kakashi, whose eye returned to the little orange book.

Kurenai sat next to Asuma and there was a frown of disgust in her face. "Aren't you even going to pay attention to how your team does?" She asked. She was less impressed with Kakashi at every moment. While there were occasional flashes of brilliancy from the man, they were few and far between and frankly, it was getting quite tedious to have to stand him reading that book all the time.

Kakashi eye smiled at her, then, with a snap, slammed his book's sides together. "Kurenai, I do believe you need something to help you unwind." Kakashi said, rubbing his chin.

It seemed that his blond student knew exactly what he meant, because seconds after, he had approached Kurenai and was holding the same small, orange book he'd been reading in his hand, clearly offering it to the red eyed jounin who looked at the boy with a hint of distrust and apprehension.

Sasuke sighed. "Naruto… I don't think she'll like it." The Uchiha said, from a few meters behind the blond.

Naruto looked at him for a second, and Sasuke could've sworn he frowned for an instant. Then he actually pushed it into Kurenai's hands, a tad more insistently than before.

"Just… give it a chance, okay?" The pink haired girl next to the Uchiha said. "I thought it was just tasteless smut, but it's not, really! Turns out, not everything by Jiraiya-sama has porn in it!"

"Sakura… you've read that filth!?" Ino called out in horror. "Wait until Ami hears of this…"

The pinkette merely offered a smirk. "Sasuke-kun reads it too~" She said in a sickeningly sweet tone.

That shut Ino up immediately, because as a matter of fact, she'd seen Sasuke reading it. This did not add up in her worldview. Sasuke was perfect. Ergo, his taste in books was also perfect. Which meant that if he liked it, it had to be good, right? Ino's brain worked on very wonky logic, which was both a blessing and a boon at times, while at others it was the main cause of many headaches, both her parents' and her teachers'. Mostly the latter and very, very rarely the former, since you could get her to focus on pretty much anything by using the Uchiha as bait.

It was a pity most people were too dumb to realize how easy it really is to manipulate a fangirl, but Sakura knew very well what she had to do to manipulate Ino, for they were the same ways in which she herself could've been manipulated, not too long ago.

There was hope for Ino yet…

"So…" Shikamaru said. "We're doing this?" He asked, raising one eyebrow and stifling a yawn as he spoke. "Can I surrender now?"

"What!? You're gonna surrender? Well, it's unfair like it is now…" Kiba said, his dog poking out of his jacket and barking in agreement. "Even Akamaru thinks so."

"We'll see…" Kakashi cryptically stated, offering them a shit eating grin under his mask. "Anyway… you can begin whenever you like." He said, flipping a page in the book. "Asuma, give the command." He said to Asuma, upon finding the man seemingly thoughtful again.

Asuma shook his head. "Kurenai, give the command." He said, looking specifically at Shikamaru.

Kurenai rolled her eyes. Their stalling had managed to make team 7 actually take a few steps away to remove the advantage that the two joined teams had obtained by surrounding Team 7 from the beginning. Kakashi, despite his clear lack of interest, did seem to actually care how his team was doing, given the glances she saw him stealing at the genin every time he flipped a page.

Once she felt she'd stalled enough for there to be a safe distance between the teams, Kurenai sighed. "Begin!" she yelled, doubt settling in the pit of her stomach as she saw Kiba recklessly charge ahead along with Akamaru, into the formed Team 7, followed by a hasty Hinata, who hurried to make up for Kiba's rashness with her defensive style.

A decent combination, if this fight were a friendly spar limited to Taijutsu.

Shino and Shikamaru hung back, while Ino and Chouji were left wondering whether to support the other two or not.

Ultimately, they'd chosen to rush behind Kiba and Hinata, just as Kiba and Akamaru reached their target and singled out Sasuke to begin their bout. Contrary to what Kurenai expected, Team 7 didn't even move when that happened…

… and she instantly figured out why when Kiba went right past Sasuke like he wasn't even there.

She bit her lip. Her own team, fooled by her specialty. The basic bunshin, one of the weakest forms of genjutsu there are, most don't even consider it genjutsu even despite its nature as an illusion, complimented by a ridiculously easy to break and easily noticeable D rank genjutsu that would've broken the moment the genin stopped paying attention to the bunshin.

"Sakura, you know what to do! Naruto, take Hinata out of the game, don't let her touch you!" Sasuke barked the orders quickly and jumped from where Sakura's genjutsu had concealed him, quickly dashing for the Kunoichi and Shinobi dashing behind Hinata herself.

"Dammit!" Kiba yelled, as he landed on the ground after leaping to deliver a cross to Sasuke's face that would no doubt have been devastating. His ear twitched and he narrowly avoided a pinkish blur that he'd later learn was Sakura's leg. Had she been more fit, he would've been unable to dodge.

Kiba growled and tried to swipe at Sakura, aiming to scratch her face… only to feel her left forearm block his wild swipe. She hadn't been fast enough to hit him, but she'd been fast enough to complete the roundhouse kick and even block. Maybe she might even have been interesting to fight.

However, her counter was predictable, a simple straight punch that Kiba found himself trying to block…

… Only to see it punch right through his flimsy, one armed guard. He'd expected it strong enough to hold back Sakura's attack and, had this been a month ago, he wouldn't have even felt the attack. As it was, he was left dizzied while Akamaru quickly went to make up for his deficiency.

Yet Sakura was unrelenting. She did not have the strength or speed to fight Kiba on equal grounds and Akamaru's wild instincts and small size made him a tough opponent to face. However, she was vastly more skilled than Kiba was, as the Inuzuka, like all of his clan, relied mostly on instincts. The difference was, he hadn't yet developed them to the point where they could supplant real skill.

And proper movements can make an entire world of difference when speaking about the strength behind an attack, that much Sakura had proven.

Kiba, however, was faring better than his teammate. He was fighting the arguably weakest member of the team in a straight up fight. Meanwhile, the one who'd followed him first to cover him, Hinata…

… Was facing Uzumaki Naruto.

Unlike her peers, Kurenai was observing that bout more than she was the other two.

Most males, even genin, have an aversion to the idea of striking females. It's an idea ingrained in their heads since infancy. It's just something you don't do unless you absolutely have to. It was an instinct that many, many Kunoichi took advantage of and that Shinobi outgrew with time. This was more prevalent in civilian born Shinobi, but some clan Shinobi had this view as well, although that only came from the more traditionalist clans, not even the Hyuuga were that retrograde.

It was to be expected for a genin to be incapable of attacking one of his female comrades, even in a spar.

Uzumaki Naruto appeared to have no objections, however, to handling his Kunoichi comrades in a rather rough fashion. Proven when he'd engaged Hyuuga Hinata in combat. The girl had set herself in a ready stance, Byakugan flashing, and had been ready to punch right through the blond to aid her teammate. It made Kurenai proud to see the normally shy girl so eager to defend her teammate.

She had thrown three open palmed jabs, the first two of which Uzumaki dodged, first by tilting his body slightly to the left and out of the way of her right palm, then to the right to avoid the left palm and then back to the left, except this time his left hand shot like an elemental bullet and grabbed Hinata's wrist before she could retract it.

In a move that was very reminiscent of the Jyuuken in the way that Naruto placed his legs, he buried his right elbow in just the right spot in Hinata's ribs, causing her to gasp out her pain at the sudden attack. She had been pulled into the attack, which had added to the force of the blow.

The Uzumaki then pulled further on her arm, extending his right leg a bit more so that it swept her feet from under her and once she was airborne, spun her around once so he could toss her away, back the way she came.

Sakura smirked. "Let's tag, Naruto!" She yelled, seeing as Kiba was recovering from the few weakening blows she'd dealt him. She would not be able to keep him down for long, she was not strong enough.

Yet.

The blond nodded and Sakura ran past him, leaving behind both Akamaru and Kiba, whom was busy wiping a stray trail of red from the lip that Sakura had split with her first punch. "Dammit… I just got my ass kicked by a girl…" Kiba muttered. "No matter. I saw what you did to Hinata you asshole."

There was no going around it, the Inuzuka was incredibly pissed.

Kurenai was certain that even Kakashi would have noticed the crush he harbored on the Hyuuga, though she guessed that at this point it could only be a good thing since it'd get him to focus and go all out, unlike how he'd heavily underestimated Sakura and paid for it.

Asuma scoffed. "Sakura might have some new tricks, but so does Ino." He said, staring at where the blonde had engaged Sakura.

"Sakura knows a trick that can beat all others, though." Kakashi said, conversationally. "You'll see…"

Sasuke… was not having a good time fighting Chouji. While slow as molasses, Chouji was no doubt far stronger, physically, than Sasuke was and could have ended the fight if he'd landed one of the attacks he'd launched with his huge hands. Not to mention, Ino, while not particularly helping Chouji, was still hindering him, getting in his way. So he'd been in a bit of trouble, forced to constantly dodge Chouji's attacks since Ino kept annoying him when he tried to attack the chubby nin.

Damaging him was hard, as well, his bulk prevented Sasuke's unarmed attacks from dealing real damage and Sasuke was reluctant to rely on his admittedly limited arsenal of jutsu and lethal weaponry. While he could've killed Chouji several times over already, that would've defeated the point of being comrades.

Asuma was aware of how frustrated the dancing game had kept the two members of Team 8. Ino was unwilling to actively harm Sasuke, though she would not have been capable of doing it, and while Chouji was, for once, putting in some effort, it was clear he would never be able to touch the Uchiha with his current level of speed. Sasuke hadn't even broken a sweat from jumping from spot to spot, dodging the giant-sized lumps of flesh that Chouji swung around like a madman.

"Tche. You're taking forever, Sakura." Sasuke muttered, taking out a particular set of kunai he was fond of. With a perfectly fluid movement, he tossed the Kunai at Chouji, both of them curving around the fat boy in such a way that when he brought up his giant arms to cover himself, the wire that the Kunai had been tied to trapped them against the Akimichi's chest. "This may sting a bit." Sasuke informed.

He did not know what the Raiton jutsu required to actually imbue the ninja wire with lightning was. It was a variant of the normal one used to flow chakra through any item, that much he knew, he just didn't know how to do it with Raiton.

Now, using an exercise that produces sparks of lightning by vibrating his own chakra? That much he can do, since it's basic training for his first affinity. Add that to the metallic wire, and you've got something that pretty much makes the need for a specific jutsu moot.

Ino frowned, seeing how Chouji felt the discharge of Sasuke's Raiton chakra, before going to intercept the Uchiha and end whatever jutsu he was using. As in many of her affairs involving the Uchiha, she got blocked by her pinkette ex-best friend. "Ino."

"Sakura."

With a smirk, Ino decided to start going through handseals, since the pinkette didn't know what sort of jutsu she would use and most likely wouldn't be smart enough to try to stop her. Sakura had always been slow on the uptake when it came to actual fighting. She'd probably brace herself for whatever attack would come with the hope to block it.

What Ino had gleamed from her brief bout with Kiba was that Sakura fought much like the other two in close range, a reactionary fighting style that didn't lend itself well to a ninjutsu fight.

Sakura, however, jumped forward and delivered a punishing blow to Ino's jaw that sent her tumbling to the floor in shock, completely and utterly, because she hadn't expected Sakura to actually be smart. Hadn't she basically gotten her high grades entirely on her astounding memory?

Sakura smirked. "I'm not the same Sakura I was in the academy, Ino!" She said, her fist meeting her palm and her knuckles cracking. "And I think I'm actually kind of finding my Kunoichi pride with this fight. Seriously… This is kind of demeaning."

Ino growled and got right back up, forgetting all about her surprise and instead trying to nail Sakura with her jutsu again, only to get similarly blocked as before.

Meanwhile, Naruto was having a far easier time with Kiba than the latter had expected. In fact, Kiba was losing rather badly despite his focus. He couldn't lay a hand on Naruto, no matter what he did. He was always a little bit faster, he was always a tad stronger and he was always just plain better.

And it pissed Kiba off to no end, which was throwing his abilities off even further. How could this jackass be so much better than him? What the hell made him so good? Why couldn't Kiba himself be that good?! He wouldn't let the guy who had beat up Hinata with so little care, who hadn't even sported an expression when he did, walk away scot free.

Yet when he tried to punch Uzumaki in the face, he felt a knee bury itself in his stomach, only seconds after noticing he'd badly overextended himself and Uzumaki had made use of his smaller frame to slip past Kiba's attack.

The blond clasped his hands together and prepared to bring them down on the back of Kiba's neck, when the dog boy heard the words of his savior.

"Kagemane No Jutsu, success." A dull, bored and tired voice called out. "Now, Hinata!"

The Hyuuga, with a bit of a limp, set herself in the familiar Jyuuken stance.

Kiba let a grin nearly split his face in half at the sight of the frozen boy about to be defeated.

Sakura gasped, feeling a strange, tingling sensation run through her entire body. She was tired. Far more tired than she should be. She'd only knocked Ino around for a minute or two at most, she had barely had to tap into her chakra reserves to do it, even, so why… why was most of her chakra gone already?

As she fell to the ground, limp, she saw the form of Aburame Shino walking away from her and she loudly cursed the Kikaichu.

"And, it's a wrap, Kakashi." Asuma said, a smile on his face.

Kurenai, meanwhile, frowned, which actually set Asuma's nerves on edge.


	8. Reverting Situations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a completely predictable outcome happens.

Shikamaru was not as dumb as he liked to make people think he was. Fact is, he was just too lazy to use his rather impressive intellect outside of the things he was actually interested in, such as Shogi or figuring out ways to put in the least effort. However, he is not so lazy as to simply lie there and wait to be killed in a fight.

He was also smart enough to understand that even if he was lazy, not training at all was a big no-no, because more likely than not that would get him killed horribly one day.

Even so, he really, really didn't want to take part in this exercise. He'd never fought Uzumaki and did not plan to, because everyone who did ended up in pain and the only one who stood a chance in hell against him in sparring practice had been the Uchiha, who even so had never managed to defeat the blond in a straight up fight.

Their teachers had a little wager going on about this, that much was easy to figure out from how they acted and what they said. So chances were that if they lost, Asuma would be insufferable. Shikamaru didn't really care, since even if he tried his hardest, he would not be capable of nagging to the level Ino or his mother could nag.

So he tried to surrender immediately. He did not want to be in the battlefield opposite Uzumaki. He was not dumb, like Kiba, who thought that one month of training would make up for the colossal difference there had been between Uzumaki and practically everyone else. Much less so considering that one of the village's Elite Jounin was the one who was actually teaching that particular genin team.

Heck, even Sakura, whom he'd believed would not be much of a problem seemed to move in synch with her teammates so naturally that Shikamaru had to assume that they'd trained together for quite a bit of time. Possibly they'd trained constantly the entire month, even despite the fact that they'd taken a C rank.

Both the Uchiha and the Uzumaki trained religiously, Shikamaru did not believe for a second that they hadn't forced or convinced Sakura to catch up or be left in the dust. Also, the fact that she hadn't looked over at Sasuke and blushed even once meant that she had also managed to shake her severe case of fangirlism away. This filled Shikamaru's heart with fleeting hope for Ino… Maybe he'd have to ask Team 7 how they managed to break Sakura's infatuation…

His surrender attempt had, predictably, been shot down. Asuma had told them not to hold back at all, which meant that even he recognized that despite the overwhelming odds, Team 7 was still an opponent to take completely seriously.

Were he to be quite honest, Shikamaru wasn't sure of their odds. Kakashi had been right. Sakura had been the best Kunoichi overall, Sasuke was the Rookie Of The Year and Uzumaki had basically been untouchable during the academy.

If their teamwork was anywhere near as good as Shikamaru expected it to be from merely watching how they moved, then they'd probably prove more than a challenge despite outnumbering them two to one.

Shikamaru suppressed a groan of annoyance when he saw two thirds of his team rush to combat them outright. Kiba knew that two of the three had been the top two for Taijutsu and Ninjutsu in the academy, did he really think that by jumping in on his own he'd do anything other than get his behind kicked?

"You have a plan." Shino said, distracting Shikamaru from where he saw the genjutsu that had covered Team 7 fade and the engagements commence. Shikamaru winced at how Kiba was getting his ass utterly handed to him by Sakura, which meant that his expectations of their general ability had been way off.

Shikamaru nodded in response to the Aburame's query. He had a plan that he could execute with just the both of them. Team 7 had taken care of the 'divide' part, and now Shikamaru had to conquer them one by one. Easier said than done.

When Hinata flew in his general direction, he saw Shino move to intercept her, and when he set her down and she stopped nursing her aching side, he decided he had to explain it right then and there. "Hinata… I will catch Uzumaki with the Kagemane no Jutsu. When I do, you will block off his Chakra. Start with his arms, if I'm correct, I'll only be able to hold the Kagemane for a few seconds at the most."

Trying to hold someone who vastly outclassed you in both brute strength and raw chakra, according to his father, was something that he had learned was an effort in futility unless your will was stronger than theirs. Shikamaru had no illusions of overpowering the will of the blond, either, so he would have to bank on the few seconds he'd be able to hold and one or two extra from the surprise of actually getting hit with the Kagemane.

Distractions would be pointless, Uzumaki would ignore him just like he ignored everything else.

With a muttered 'okay', Hinata stood on wobbly feet, a hand pressed against the spot she'd been struck in. It'd probably bruise later, Shikamaru absent mindedly noted, as he went muttered a 'So troublesome', watching Team 7 manhandle his teammates like they were first year students in the academy against jounin.

"Drain Sakura's chakra. She doesn't have much of it, so it should be quick." Shikamaru said to Shino, who merely nodded in acceptance of his task. "Then, I'll move to hold Sasuke and Chouji will knock him right out."

He realized, vaguely, that there was a very big risk in this plan. Namely, that Uzumaki would break his hold before Hinata could render him harmless. If that happened…

Well, there was no use dwelling in Ifs, he had to act. He actually rushed for the first time in his life, as it was pretty much clear that Kiba would not be able to hold the blond off for much longer. When Uzumaki clasped his hands behind Kiba's back, Shikamaru yelled his technique's success and spurred Hinata on.

He did not look back to see if Shino had managed to do his part.

All that he was concentrated on, for a full three seconds, was his hold on the Uzumaki. Four.

Hinata was ready, the chakra in her hands had gathered and she had begun to pull her arm back to land the first attack against Uzumaki's Right shoulder.

Five.

Hinata had hesitated for an instant. She hadn't focused on his coils last time, paying a closer look to the way that he moved instead. Now that he was immobilized, she could focus on his chakra coils entirely. It still surprised her, despite the fact that she'd become aware of the boy's existence sometime around two years ago, when he stopped being the dead last nobody wanted to associate with and became the unbeatable Taijutsu monster that everyone feared having to face in a spar.

She had seen him with her Byakugan many times. And even so…

His coils were thicker and his chakra more dense than anything she'd ever seen. Whereas most people's chakra tended to be so thin that even the Byakugan would see through it, the exception being people with either exceptionally large chakra reserves, she could not see through Uzumaki's chakra coils.

Shaking off the distraction, her hands began to move quickly, sealing up the Tenketsu in Uzumaki's right arm, rendering it useless as she struck it repeatedly. She knew not if he would still be capable of moving the arm if she blocked the upper Tenketsu, but given the ridiculous amount of chakra coursing through it, it was a safer bet to block them all.

Hinata was not brave enough to gamble on something like this.

"HINATA, GET AWAY!" She heard Kiba yell, as she was twisting her body to change targets without dropping her stride…

… Only to get punched right in the middle of the face by Uzumaki, an attack that sent her flying back with a broken nose. Much to her amazement, it didn't even seem as if it bothered him that he had his arm rendered useless.

Kiba had jumped up and tried to hit Uzumaki before he could strike Hinata, but not only had he been late to stop him, he'd left himself completely open as Uzumaki spun on his heel and lashed out with his leg, avoiding Kiba's punch by barely tilting his neck away.

Sakura's roundhouse kick had been incredibly fast and near perfect, movement-wise. Naruto blew her out of the water, however, as Kiba heard the whooshing sound that his leg made as it cut through the air. The blond's shorter stature meant that he had to stretch himself to a greater extent than Sakura had, Kiba's jump had also added a further strain.

So it was with no small amount of awe that Shikamaru watched as the kick, executed perfectly, sent Kiba flying in the opposite direction from where Hinata had gone.

Yet, Kiba had actually managed to do what he'd intended to do, since his hand, which had missed Uzumaki's face by inches on its way forward, carved a very noticeable, jagged gash across the blond's whiskered cheek on its way back.

Shikamaru knew he stood no chance once left alone with the blond, so he took the few seconds he'd earned and ran to assist Chouji with Sasuke.

The small shock that had knocked the chubby boy out had only lasted for a few seconds of Chouji being out of it. Being a ninja, the Akimichi sat up and watched as Sasuke and Shino squared off, taking a few instants to gather his bearings. Since his jutsu had worn off, his arms had returned back to normal and he could shrug off the wire.

Yet Chouji found himself staring at the Taijutsu display that the Aburame and the Uchiha were showing, both displaying the prowess that had made them rivals. At one point, Shino used Kawarimi to set a trap with a Kikai Bunshin, but Sasuke had seen it coming and acted accordingly. Shino had to recall his Kikaichu lest they get incinerated by the grand fireball that Sasuke conjured.

It didn't even seem to tire the Uchiha, which meant that he had considerably larger chakra reserves than what most genin would have, as elemental jutsu tended to be harder to learn for genin due to their chakra cost.

"Sakura, get up already!" The Uchiha yelled, engaging in melee with the Aburame again, though Shino was moving more warily now that he was certain that he was outclassed in the stamina department.

Just as Shino leaped back, Sasuke prepared to follow but found himself unable to.

"Kagemane No Jutsu, success." Shikamaru called. "Chouji, end it now!"

The Akimichi nodded, engaging in his most powerful jutsu, the human meat bullet. He grew in size until he was a huge ball and, propelled with his chakra, began to rush forward. This was not as advanced a technique in the Akimichi skill tree as many thought it to be. In fact, it was a precursor to the partial multi-size technique since it required far less delicate control and more raw chakra and mass.

He was a ways away from where Sasuke had been frozen, but he was going fast.

Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw the rolling human boulder.

"What the- Oof!" Shikamaru had apparently tried to say something, but got cut off as a slender, feminine hand buried in his gut. "Sorry I'm late, but I was enjoying my nap." The pinkette said, grinning at the Uchiha who took the chance to leap away from the incoming Chouji-ball.

Chouji, deciding he might as well try again, steered himself to perform an U-turn and rushed at Sasuke again…

Until his path was blocked. A pair of tiny hands slammed on the rolling boulder and for the first time, Chouji found resistance from this jutsu from someone other than his clan, who boasted ridiculous physical strength. Heck, he'd been ground to a halt and had only managed to push whoever had stopped him back a few feet.

Even Chouji could tell that the only one in the 'battle' with enough physical strength to pull said feat off was Uzumaki.

"Wasn't the chakra in his right arm blocked?" Asked Shikamaru, holding his stomach and looking with wide eyes at how the Uzumaki kept Chouji from advancing. "He shouldn't be capable of moving that arm!"

Shikamaru didn't know that Kurenai had mirrored the question to the silver haired jounin sitting on the same log as her. "How is he moving that arm?" She asked, raising one eyebrow at Kakashi.

"That's a secret." The silver haired jounin replied.

"Bunshin." Shino suddenly cut. "That's a bunshin!" he warned, and everyone then looked at the second Naruto whose arm was hanging limply by his side.

Sasuke smiled. "I told him to make a few and hide them around the training ground in case something like this happened." The Uchiha's smugness was pretty much warranted. "We had an hour to plan how to beat you all, you think we wouldn't take precautions against the Jyuuken?"

"We can't beat you three on three." Shikamaru said, sighing. "I yield." The Nara said, once he'd realized that he, Shino and Chouji were pretty much screwed at that point.

"Dammit!" Asuma yelled from the sidelines.

Shikamaru groaned. "Troublesome… so you probably had plans on how to beat all of us, then?"

"Pretty much, yes." Sasuke admitted. "Sakura had the intelligence and I had the tactics."

"Kiba would underestimate me." Sakura began, smiling as she stood with her arms folded over her nonexistent chest. "I only needed to distract him long enough until Naruto finished with Hinata, but I could have beaten him if we'd fought for longer. Ino needs someone to immobilize her opponents before she can take them out, so all I had to do was keep attacking."

Shino adjusted his sunglasses. "How did you get back up after being drained by my Kikaichu? They should have taken most of your chakra away." He said in a flat tone that was nonetheless laced with curiosity.

"Oh, that's easy. I have small chakra reserves so I get tired really easily." Sakura said, shrugging. "I'm used to running on fumes, training with those two, so… it doesn't really bother me as much as most people, and even without using chakra to enhance my muscles I'm still in better physical state than Shikamaru is so I really had no doubts about taking him out."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "If you hadn't toyed around with Ino, you could've taken out Shikamaru and we would have won without skirting defeat." He said, glaring at the pinkette.

"We were prepared for that, anyway." Sakura said, shrugging.

Chouji had returned to his normal size and sat on the ground, a bit dizzied, after a simple punch to his giant ball form that had shown him just why exactly Uzumaki had been capable of stopping him at all.

"Was getting caught part of your plans?" Shikamaru asked, looking not unlike someone who had just been told something very shocking, like Hitler having Jews under his employ during WW2 or along these lines.

"Actually, no." Sakura admitted, with a sheepish smile and tone. "I kind of got distracted with Ino when I should've just knocked her out and dealt with you as soon as possible."

"We came pretty close to losing because of that." Sasuke said, his voice deadpan as he did.

"Hey! I had to work out my frustrations." Sakura said with a huff. "Besides, I'm trying to pound sense into Ino, it's kind of my duty as her best friend." She said, gesturing with her hands at the unconscious blonde.

Sasuke sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"That was a rather ingenious stratagem." Shino stated, looking at Shikamaru, who was still in the ground. Shikamaru groaned and mumbled a 'thank you'. "I must train more intensely to make up for my deficiencies, if this is the level that is to be expected from a proper genin." The Aburame said, turning to Sakura, who blushed at the indirect praise.

The pinkette, however, wobbled on her feet for a second, making everyone remember the fact that she was dangerously close to Chakra Exhaustion, only to be caught by Naruto as she began to fall to the ground. Well, the Naruto bunshin, anyway.

"What is that clone? It's solid and it seems to be autonomous…"

"It is." Sasuke confirmed. "That's a Kage Bunshin. You guys did enough to beat one of those."

"Sounds important." Chouji said, shaking his head to eliminate the last spells of dizziness from it.

"It is. It's a B Rank jutsu." Sakura said, shrugging. "I don't know the details, though." She explained, sitting down next to Shikamaru as the clone gently laid her down. "Anyway… I'll… take a nap now…"

* * *

"There's nothing to it. My team kicked ass, plain and simple." Kakashi said, leaning against the bar and propping his elbows in it. "We made a bet and you two have to pay up. Don't worry, I'll be nice." Kakashi said, smirking. "I'll help your students with their Taijutsu, Kurenai, and I know how to kick your kids into high gear, Asuma… though it will cost you."

Asuma raised one eyebrow. "It will cost me what?"

"You'll have to teach Naruto wind Ninjutsu on top of teaching him how to use his affinity."

"I thought those went hand in hand." Asuma said, raising one eyebrow.

"Hien (Flying Swallow)." Said Kakashi, eye-smiling at him. "I don't know what kind of weapon would fit Naruto best, but he needs one and I'm thinking of getting all of my team to try out for weapons when I get the chance."

The Hien was something that went beyond simply channeling wind chakra through your weapon. That would make your weapon sharper, yes, but that's it. The Hien turned Asuma's trench knives from extremely dangerous weapons in melee range into a meat. It was designed for knives so that meant that Kakashi had an idea of what'd fit Naruto best. "I'll… think about it."

Kakashi shrugged. "And as for you, Kurenai…"

"If it involves something perverted, so help me, I will force you to make out with Gai." The kunoichi jounin grumbled, causing both Asuma and Kakashi to cringe.

Kakashi shook his head. "I'll need you to help me with Sasuke too." He said, rubbing his chin. "Even with the Sharingan doing the heavy lifting, having an idea of how Genjutsu works is very important. It's what separates an Uchiha Genjutsu from a master's Genjutsu." He explained.

Kurenai, of course, knew this. Ocular genjutsu were actually rather easy to break and avoid, as most relied on eye-to-eye contact and if one got away from the user's line of vision they'd break instantly and the variety in them was rather limited, which meant recognizing them was easier. While every Uchiha had the ability to use mid level genjutsu as a result of their sharingan, only Itachi was really capable of using master-level genjutsu on par with Kurenai.

Meaning, Genjutsu good enough to fool even the Sharingan and Byakugan.

"I'll agree, I guess."

"Tell you what, I'll also help you with Kiba and Akamaru. I know a thing or two about Ninken that I'm sure would surprise Kiba." The silver haired jounin said, an eye smile on his face.

Asuma sighed. "Kakashi… how the hell did you train these kids? I've never seen teamwork that good on a rookie team, even Inoichi, Shikaku and Chouza had a rocky start." The Sarutobi heir spoke, the stool that he'd been sitting in creaking as he leaned over to look past Kurenai, who'd ended up in the middle this time.

"I… had absolutely nothing to do with it! In fact, I only really began training them yesterday!"

Kurenai and Asuma felt their jaws hitting the floor, but they were busier contemplating the sentence that Kakashi had oh so cheerfully dropped. It was a bomb that left them feeling kind of cheated.

"I told you, I got the best three students from the academy and I wasn't kidding. Sasuke and Naruto have been friends for a long time and Sakura was extremely receptive to the verbal beatdown that Sasuke gave her to break her out of her Fangirlism. She's still got a lot to make up for, but her own innate talent more than makes up for it." The Elite Jounin stated, sounding as cheerful as he looked. "They passed the bell test before they even took it."

"Okay… You weren't kidding, then." Kurenai said. "I thought you'd only meant their grades but… they're that good by training on their own…"

Kakashi sighed. "They train very hard." He said, looking at the glass he held in his hands with apprehension. "I kind of feel like a dick for waiting for an entire month before actually teaching them anything. They learned tree walking in a couple of hours and they've already got the gist of water walking. I'll have to test Sakura's affinity and move on to Ninjutsu pretty soon, since they don't need my help for their Taijutsu… Maybe I should ask Gai for help on that end…"

It was really odd how, at times, Kakashi would Shunshin away the moment he was made aware that Gai was in the vicinity and how sometimes the Jounin would actually go looking. One would even think that they were friends rather than 'just' Eternal Rivals. Kakashi didn't seem to give much thought to their rivalry whatsoever, often coming up with ridiculously simple challenges he could beat Gai easily in whereupon the other would rant about Youth and leave Kakashi alone for a few hours while he beat his self imposed punishment training.

It left most people deeply confused as to what their relationship really was.

"You… probably shouldn't introduce your students to Gai yet." Asuma said. "It's tradition to scare them with him after their first year as Genin." He admitted.

"I don't think they'll spend a full year as genin." Kakashi said, smirking.

"They're good…" Kurenai said. "But being a good fighter isn't all that you need to get through the Chunin exams."

"That may be true." Kakashi said, granting her the point. "But I'd still bet on them. Heck, I'd put them in the chunin exams right now if I could. I don't know if they'd get promoted as they are now, but they'd survive and gain valuable experience and that's something I can't teach them." The copy nin said, shrugging.

Kurenai frowned, but said nothing.

"Anyway… I've got to go. I'll show up on time tomorrow to spice things up, too much of the same routine gets boring after a while…"

Without a further word, he got up from his stool and left, Kurenai and Asuma remaining there in complete shock.

"Kurenai." Asuma's voice sounded deeply disturbed.

"Yeah?" So did Kurenai's.

"Did we just witness the day when Kakashi decided to be on time for something?" Asked the male, his voice sounding almost fearful.

"We did." Answered Kurenai, her voice also having that same quality as Asuma's.

"Am I in a genjutsu?" The bearded jounin asked.

"Kai!" Kurenai yelled, disrupting her chakra flow. "No, we're not. My god… I… we have to see this. If this is true…"

* * *

Kurenai blinked, seeing how Kakashi was gleefully putting his team through the ringer by making them spar while clinging to a tree. More than once, she saw one of them fall, hit the floor and then get right back up to continue fighting. Naruto had fallen much more than the other two, since they were ganging up on him.

Seeing how even despite that he carried the least bruises, it had to be necessary.

Still…

She had something more important to report. That day, after confirming that, in fact, Kakashi had met his team at the designated hour (5 AM, which explained why Kakashi went to bed early last night) and actually stuck around for practice, she decided she needed to speak to someone.

"He wasn't only on time…" She mumbled, her face white as sour cream. "He was… early!"

It was just her luck that Asuma and the Hokage were in the same room. So was Itachi as well as a messenger of the Fire Daimyo, who'd come to negotiate the price of the standard Tora Retrieval Mission (that mission, hilariously enough, was actually one of the most paying missions in the entire roster because no one wanted to do it otherwise) by which I mean he was basically a courier who carried a letter where the Daimyo agreed to the new price.

Everyone except the delegate paled immediately. Even Itachi, who was already pale. "Then… we're headed for a disaster of epic proportions." The Uchiha said, his tone of grim finality, as if there was nothing that could avert the incoming tide of darkness.

The messenger raised one eyebrow. "Epic proportions?" He asked. "What does that mean?"

Asuma was tempted to just say 'it means it'll be big. Dumbass.', but reigned in his need at the last moment, instead leaving his father to deal with the unaware man.

"What he means is that this will be huge." Explained the Hokage, which reminded Asuma that yeah, every once in a while the family resemblance was there, at the very least, in their attitudes. Which kinda made him wonder if he'd ever become a perverted grandpa. Well, it'd mean becoming an insanely epic old man, too, so it wasn't all that bad. "Much like the wrath of a god."

"Exactly." Asuma said, taking in a deep drag from his cigarette and letting it out as the eldest in the room took over again.

The Hokage continued. "Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies." He said, to give the man a clear image. "River and seas boiling!"

"Forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes!" Kurenai said, shaking her head at the horrifying idea.

"The dead rising from the grave!" Asuma said, gesturing wildly.

"Human sacrifice." Itachi began, his tone grim and completely serious, yet somehow frantic as well. "Dogs and cats, living together!" He added, shivering. "Mass hysteria!"

"Okay, okay, I get it, I get it!" The man said, holding up his hands as if to placate the hysterical nins as they continued to panic. "But why is he being early such a big deal? Aren't ninja supposed to be responsible?"

"They are. Kakashi is special." The Hokage informed.

* * *

"Okay, kids, you did good. In fact, you impressed me. So, just for that, today I'm gonna teach you a few basic ninjutsu you can use for fighting! First, though, we'll test your affinities. I thought I'd have to buy Chakra paper to do this, but I stole some from Itachi." He absent mindedly say.

"So that was why he was raving today. Itachi-nii keeps careful stock of everything he has, so he was quite shocked when he couldn't find it." Sasuke said, glaring at Kakashi.

"He'll get over it." Kakashi said, dismissively. "Anyway, I only got two. You already know your affinities, right Sasuke?"

Sasuke nodded. "Lightning is my main affinity and I've got a minor affinity in fire." The Uchiha informed, nodding at the tall jounin, who hummed appreciatively.

"Luckily for you, I know plenty of Raiton jutsu for you. It's my main affinity, as well, though I can more or less use all elements with a bit of proficiency." The Copy nin spoke, pulling out two rectangular papers from one of his jacket's pouches. "The way this works is simple, you pour chakra into it and it reacts to tell you your affinity. Telling you what to expect is pointless since I'll be able to tell you anyway."

Sakura nodded and took her slip, eyeing it curiously. She began pouring chakra into it, little by little, and it grew wet within seconds.

"Okay, that's water." Kakashi said.

"Obviously." Sakura snarked.

"Anyway, I know some Suiton jutsu that you should be able to do. So long as you've got a water source, water is actually one of the most versatile elements. The chakra control and handseals are a bit of a problem to most people, but you should be able to get through both with no problem." Kakashi said, eye-smiling at Sakura. "Though in your case I don't recommend focusing too much on elemental ninjutsu, since your chakra control would do you better as a medic or genjutsu specialist, the choice is ultimately yours."

Sakura nodded, humming in thought. It was a heavy decision, after all, and was ultimately about what she wanted to do with her career as a ninja as she was still in her forming years and thus where her development went today would have ripples in the future.

"And now, Naruto!" Kakashi said.

Sasuke was actually rather curious what Naruto's affinity would be. He didn't expect anything silly like a twelve year old genin have three affinities or something, that was ridiculous and needed a bloodline. There is a reason why two affinities are necessary for the jounin promotion for ninjutsu specialists, because it's hard to do and requires a degree of elemental mastery that only people who actually train their affinities whenever they can achieve.

Training an affinity can take upwards of a decade if you're not innately talented in it and most people were only innately talented in a single element.

Even so, Naruto was a box of surprises and anything could come out of him. Sasuke had not expected the specific details of the Kage Bunshin, when Kakashi had explained it. It was a shame that the memory backlash would eventually cause Naruto to develop a split personality disorder, because the idea of using the jutsu to speed right through chakra control and theoretical studies was… kind of awesome.

The jutsu took most of Sasuke's chakra to make a half dozen clones, though, and they lasted only a couple minutes, so it'd be useless for him. A bummer, but you can't have them all. Still… again, that only made Sasuke think about his friend and the burden that he'd carried for so long.

Naruto's ridiculous chakra was a byproduct of having the Kyuubi sealed within him. Some of its chakra supposedly bled into Naruto's own and in a pinch, Naruto could draw from the fox's pool, essentially giving Naruto pretty much unlimited chakra.

Maybe his affinity would be affected by the fox, too? The fox hadn't displayed any elemental affinity in its attacks, but what was to stop it from having one? Its chakra mixed with Naruto's, so it was a very real possibility…

Naruto poured chakra into the paper…

… And it got neatly cut in half.

"That's wind." Kakashi informed. "Fortunately for you, since you won yesterday, I've got a great sensei lined up for you." The silver haired Shinobi said. "Also, since you all did so well, I've decided to let you guys get a weapon for yourselves and I will even teach you what I know of whatever weapon you choose to use!"

Sasuke scoffed. "We could pick a really exotic weapon and then you'd have nothing to teach us."

Kakashi chuckled. "Ah, so nice to see you're still an innocent, cute little genin. Sasuke, I got deployed more often during the Third War than the frequency with which genin take D ranks." Explained the scarecrow-named-man as he patted Sasuke's head. "If it can be used as a weapon, I've seen it used as such, and back then I had to rely on the Sharingan a lot since I'm not as ridiculously strong as I am today!" Chirped the overly cheerful sensei. "Anyway, it's optional, guys, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it's always useful to have a second set of skills you can fall back to. Overspecialization will cripple you."

The three genin nodded at that. Dedicating yourself to a single set of skills, no matter what they were, would be crippling for a field Shinobi, since there were ways to counter just about anything and the few techniques that couldn't be countered often required huge sacrifices, were ridiculously complex or outright bloodlines.

All three of them knew that much.

"Anyway… Off we go, to the biggest weapon shop I know of!"


End file.
